Astronaut says leaving International Space Station is ‘bittersweet’published at 08:40 GMT
08:40 GMT
The four astronauts who make up Crew 11, Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, arrived on the International Space Station on 1 August expecting to complete a standard six and a half month stay.
They were due to come home in mid-February – but last week, a scheduled spacewalk by Fincke and Cardman was called off at the last minute. Hours later, Nasa revealed a crew member had become ill.
“It’s bittersweet,” said Fincke when he handed over the keys to the ISS to Kud-Sverchjov on Monday.
In a social media post, he stressed that all crew members on board were “stable, safe, and well cared for”.
Control of the ISS has been handed over to Russian cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and two other crew members.