Expedition 52 Crew Receives Warm Welcome in Kazakhstan and Star City04:33

Expedition 52 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer of NASA were greeted in a traditional ceremony at the airport in Karaganda, Kazakhstan Sept. 3, a few hours after landing in their Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft in Kazakhstan near the town of Dzhezkazgan. After the ceremony, the crew split up, with Yurchikhin returning to his home in Star City, Russia, while Whitson and Fischer flew back to their homes in Houston on a NASA jet. Whitson, who has logged more days in space than any other U.S. astronaut, completed a 10-month mission, her third long duration flight, while Yurchikhin and Fischer completed 136 days in space. The landing marked the first time since Nov. 26, 2010, that two NASA astronauts returned to Earth in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.