Soyuz TMA-015M undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) at 1020 GMT on 11 June 2015 ready for its re-entry the same day. Despite concerns that it had previously made an un-commanded thruster firing while attached to the station, all went well in the undocking and descent.
Aboard the craft was Russian cosmonaut and Soyuz commander Anton Shkaplerov, the US astronaut and departing space station commander Terry Virts, and finally, the Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who broke the in-orbit stay record for a woman astronaut at 199 days.
The Soyuz craft began its de-orbit burn at 1251 GMT on 11 June 2015. The landing capsule separated from the orbiting and service modules at 1319 GMT.
The landing module re-entered the atmosphere at an altitude of about 400,000 feet at 1321 GMT and went into a period of radio black-out due to the charged particles generated in the plasma during re-entry. Once going slow enough, a drogue and later full parachute were deployed and the craft landed with a last-second rocket braking in Kazakhstan at 1344 GMT. The capsule landed near the town of Zhezkazgan.
