After watching more than 2,750 sunrises from above the Earth, three crew members of the International Space Station returned to the planet for a sparkling sunrise back on Earth Wednesday.
A record-setting American astronaut and his two Russian colleagues felt the sun beat down on them on a cloudless morning after a six-month trek in orbit.
NASA's Jeff Williams returned as the U.S. record holder for time in orbit, logging 534 days in space over four missions. Williams, Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka logged 72.8 million miles in space, circling the globe 2,752 times before landing on target in the south central steppes of Kazakhstan just 23 minutes after sunrise Wednesday, 7:13 a.m. local time (1:13 a.m. GMT).
Welcome home! @Astro_Jeff returned to Earth after US record-breaking @Space_Station mission: https://t.co/DWsir5wsiHpic.twitter.com/aizcDNMGNP— NASA (@NASA) September 7, 2016
The three conducted experiments aboard the space station.
Jeff Williams set the U.S. record last month for most time spent in space beating the previous record set by Scott Kelly during his year in orbit.
The capsule contained air samples returned from the first inflatable module deployed in orbit.
The world record is held by Russian Gennady Padalka at 879 days in space.
Thirteen Russians have more time in space than Jeff Williams.
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