Rescuers recover capsule with three cosmonauts on steppes of Kazakhstan

KOROLYOV, Moscow region, March 11 (Itar-Tass) - Rescue teams rushed to recover the capsule of the Soyuz TMA-10M spaceship carrying Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky and U.S. astronaut Michael Hopkins. “All cosmonauts feel normal,” the Central Ground Control Mission told Itar-Tass. The descent capsule landed at the designated site some 147 kilometres to the southeast of the city of Dzhezkazgan, on the steppes of Kazakhstan in Central Asia at 07:24 Moscow time on Tuesday. The cosmonauts, who returned to the earth, had spent for over 165 days in the orbit. Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky became the first cosmonauts to carry an Olympic torch that lit the Olympic flame of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi into open space. The cosmonauts of the 38th ISS expedition also set the record while spending 8 hours and 10 minutes in open space in Russian-made Orlan-MK space suits. The Russian Mikhail Tyurin, the American Richard Mastracchio and the Japanese Koichi Wakata are now manning the International Space Station. The next crew of Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov, Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronaut Steven R. Swanson will fly to the ISS on board the Soyuz TMA-12M on March 26.