The manned Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft carrying Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, Italian ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and US NASA astronaut, Karen Nyberg and an Olympic torch safely back to Earth, touching down using parachutes and braking rockets at 0249 GMT on 11 November. According to commentary on Spaceflightnow.com, the craft made a deorbit firing on 0155 GMT and made a re-entry of the Earth’s atmosphere at 0226 GMT. The craft successfully undocked from the International Space Station at 2326 GMT on 10 November.
The unlit Olympic Torch carried on board had been taken outside the International Space Station (ISS) on 9 November during a six hour spacewalk by Russian Cosmonauts Sergey Ryazanskiy and Oleg Kotov ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
