A NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts touched down safely on the steppe of Kazakhstan early Sunday morning, July 26, concluding a 241-day mission aboard the International Space Station.
The Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft — carrying NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev — undocked from the ISS at 3:03 a.m. EDT (0703 GMT). It landed in a remote area near the town of Dzhezkazgan at 6:27 a.m. EDT (1027 GMT), approximately three and a half hours after departure.
During their mission, the Expedition 74 crew orbited Earth 3,856 times and traveled over 102 million miles (164 million kilometers). For Williams and Mikaev, it was their first spaceflight. For Kud-Sverchkov, the mission marked his second trip to orbit, bringing his cumulative time in space to 426 days and 9 minutes.
The Soyuz MS-28 launched to the ISS on November 27, 2025 — Thanksgiving Day — and has been docked to the orbiting laboratory ever since. The departure began Saturday morning with a change-of-command ceremony, during which Kud-Sverchkov handed command of the ISS over to NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, marking the official transition from Expedition 74 to Expedition 75.
After landing, the crew was flown by helicopter to Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Williams will return to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, while Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev will head to their training base in Star City, Russia.
The successful return comes as the ISS program continues to demonstrate robust international collaboration despite geopolitical tensions on Earth. Expedition 75, now under Commander Jessica Meir, continues scientific research and operations aboard the station with a focus on biomedical experiments, materials science, and technology demonstrations supporting future Artemis moon missions.
