BY JUSTIN RAY

Follow the Expedition 12 crew's return to Earth after six months aboard the International Space Station. Reload this page for updates.

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VIDEO: THE SOYUZ CAPSULE UNDOCKS FROM STATION PLAY
VIDEO: DEPARTING CREW BOARDS THEIR SOYUZ CAPSULE PLAY
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0045 GMT (8:45 p.m. EDT Sat.)

Outgoing ISS-12 commander Bill McArthur, flight engineer Valery Tokarev and Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes departed the international space station and safely returned to Earth today aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule. Read our full story.

0030 GMT (8:30 p.m. EDT Sat.)

Post-landing plans call for the crew to be flown from the site in helicopters within two hours of landing. They will be taken to the city of Kustanai for an initial welcoming ceremony. Then a Russian military transport plane will fly the crew to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, where their families will meet them.

0024 GMT (8:24 p.m. EDT Sat.)

"It was a heck of a ride," McArthur says. "It was like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. You'd love it."

0017 GMT (8:17 p.m. EDT Sat.)

All three crew members appear to be in good shape.

0017 GMT (8:17 p.m. EDT Sat.)

Expedition 12 commander Bill McArthur has egressed the Soyuz spacecraft.

0014 GMT (8:14 p.m. EDT Sat.)

Brazilian Space Agency astronaut Marcos Pontes has been assisted out of Soyuz.

0010 GMT (8:10 p.m. EDT Sat.)

A medical tent will be set up near the capsule in which the crew can change out of its launch and entry suits. Russian technicians will open the module's hatch and begin to remove the crew, one by one. They will be seated in special reclining chairs near the capsule for initial medical tests and to provide an opportunity to begin readapting to Earth's gravity.

0007 GMT (8:07 p.m. EDT Sat.)

Valery Tokarev has exited the capsule.

0005 GMT (8:05 p.m. EDT Sat.)

The recovery team flying aboard a convoy of Russian military helicopters have landed nearby Soyuz to begin assisting the crew out of the capsule. The spacecraft touched down and remained vertical, unlike past missions in which capsules have tipped over.

2359 GMT (7:59 p.m. EDT)

Flight controllers say the Soyuz has landed upright.

2350 GMT (7:50 p.m. EDT)

The first recovery helicopter has reached the Soyuz landing site.

2348 GMT (7:48 p.m. EDT)

TOUCHDOWN CONFIRMED! The Russian Soyuz TMA-7 capsule has landed in north-central Kazakhstan, capping the six-month voyage of Expedition 12 commander Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery Tokarev aboard the International Space Station and the 10-day adventure of Brazilian Space Agency astronaut Marcos Pontes.

2348 GMT (7:48 p.m. EDT)

Standing by for confirmation from Mission Control of the Soyuz capsule's landing.

2346 GMT (7:46 p.m. EDT)

At an altitude of about 12 meters, cockpit displays will tell cosmonaut Valery Tokarev to prepare for the soft landing engine firing. Just one meter above the surface, and just seconds before touchdown, the six solid propellant engines are fired in a final braking maneuver, enabling the Soyuz to land to complete its mission, settling down at a velocity of about 1.5 meters per second.

2344 GMT (7:44 p.m. EDT)

Four minutes to touchdown.

2342 GMT (7:42 p.m. EDT)

The ground team says the Soyuz can be seen descending on its parachute.

2340 GMT (7:40 p.m. EDT)

At an altitude of five kilometers, the module's heat shield is scheduled to be jettisoned. This is followed by the termination of the aerodynamic spin cycle and the dumping of any residual propellant from the Soyuz. Computers also will arm the module's seat shock absorbers in preparation for landing.

With the jettisoning of the capsule's heat shield, the Soyuz altimeter is exposed to the surface of the Earth. Using a reflector system, signals are bounced to the ground from the Soyuz and reflected back, providing the capsule's computers updated information on altitude and rate of descent.

2336 GMT (7:36 p.m. EDT)

Once the drogue chute is jettisoned, the main parachute to be deployed. It is connected to the Descent Module by two harnesses, covers an area of about 1,000 square meters and slows descent to 7.2 meters/second.

Initially, the Descent Module will hang underneath the main parachute at a 30-degree angle with respect to the horizon for aerodynamic stability, but the bottommost harness will be severed a few minutes before landing, allowing the Descent Module to hang vertically through touchdown.

2333 GMT (7:33 p.m. EDT)

Onboard computers should be starting a commanded sequence for deployment of the capsule's parachutes at an altitude of about 10 kilometers. Two "pilot" parachutes are unfurled first, extracting a 24-square-meter drogue parachute. Within 16 seconds, the craft's fall will slow from 230 meters per second to about 80 m/s.

The parachute deployment creates a gentle spin for the Soyuz as it dangles underneath the drogue chute, assisting in the capsule's stability in the final minutes before touchdown.

2332 GMT (7:32 p.m. EDT)

NASA spokesman Rob Navias with the recovery forces positioned the Kazakh town of Arkalyk says the Soyuz just soared overhead with a brilliant plasma trail behind the capsule.

2331 GMT (7:31 p.m. EDT)

The crew should be feeling the period of maximum G-loads -- four or five times normal Earth gravity -- during entry.

2329 GMT (7:29 p.m. EDT)

The landing convoy in Kazakhstan have reported to Mission Control in Houston that the Soyuz has been spotted during the capsule's descent.

2328 GMT (7:28 p.m. EDT)

Twenty minutes to landing. The Soyuz continues its fiery plunge into the atmosphere.

2325 GMT (7:25 p.m. EDT)

Entry Interface. The Soyuz is now hitting the upper fringes of the atmosphere at an altitude of 400,000 feet. The Expedition 12 crew members are beginning to feel the first tugs of Earth's gravity after six months in space.

The entry guidance by the spacecraft's onboard software package is scheduled to start in a couple of minutes.

2322 GMT (7:22 p.m. EDT)

Separation of the Soyuz modules has occurred. The three segments of the Soyuz TMA-7 spacecraft have jettisoned apart, allowing the crew-carrying Descent Module to safely ferry the three men back to Earth. The no-longer-needed Orbital Module and Instrumentation/Propulsion Module are designed to burn up in the atmosphere.

2318 GMT (7:18 p.m. EDT)

Time to touchdown is 30 minutes.

Just above the first traces of the Earth's atmosphere, computers will command the separation of the three modules of the Soyuz vehicle. With the crew strapped in to the Descent Module, the forward Orbital Module containing the docking mechanism and rendezvous antennas and the rear Instrumentation/Propulsion Module, which houses the engines and avionics, will pyrotechnically separate and burn up in the atmosphere.

The Descent Module's computers will orient the capsule with its ablative heat shield pointing forward to repel the buildup of heat as it plunges into the atmosphere. The crew will feel the first effects of gravity in six months at the point called Entry Interface, when the module is about 400,000 feet above the Earth, about three minutes after module separation.

2314 GMT (7:14 p.m. EDT)

The crew members report they are closing their helmet visors.

2312 GMT (7:12 p.m. EDT)

Soyuz has crossed the equator over Africa on its free fall toward the atmosphere.

In about 10 minutes, computer commands will fire explosives to separate the three Soyuz modules for atmospheric entry. The crew is strapped inside the Descent Module.

2302 GMT (7:02 p.m. EDT)

BURN COMPLETE! The Soyuz capsule carrying Expedition 12 commander Bill McArthur, flight engineer Valery Tokarev and Brazilian Space Agency astronaut Marcos Pontes has performed its braking maneuver, committing the craft for the return to Earth. Touchdown in north-central Kazakhstan is expected about 46 minutes from now.

2300 GMT (7:00 p.m. EDT)

Now half-way through this braking maneuver that will slow Soyuz by 258 miles per hour to send the craft toward atmospheric re-entry.

2258 GMT (6:58 p.m. EDT)

BURN IGNITION! The Russian Soyuz spacecraft has commenced the four-minute deorbit burn. Thrusters on the capsule's aft-end are firing to brake from orbit for the plunge back to Earth.

The capsule is flying backward over the southern Atlantic Ocean, just east of South America, on a northeasterly trajectory bound for Africa and eventually Central Asia where landing is expected at 7:48 p.m. EDT in central Kazakhstan.

2251 GMT (6:51 p.m. EDT)

The deorbit burn is now just 7 minutes away. Soyuz is now passing above the extreme southern part of South America.

2028 GMT (4:28 p.m. EDT)

UNDOCKING! With a gentle push by springs, the Soyuz TMA-7 spacecraft just undocked from the International Space Station's Zvezda control module while flying over eastern Asia.

The Expedition 12 crew is now homeward bound. Commander Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery Tokarev, along with visiting Brazilian Space Agency astronaut Marcos Pontes, are scheduled to land in Kazakhstan at 7:48 p.m. EDT (2348 GMT) today.

SATURDAY, APRIL 8, 2006

The Expedition 12 crew will bid farewell to the International Space Station's new residents and depart the complex for return to Earth today, riding a Russian Soyuz capsule to landing in Kazakhstan.

Commander Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery Tokarev, along with visiting Brazilian Space Agency astronaut Marcos Pontes, will say their goodbyes to the station's new crew -- Expedition 13 commander Pavel Vinogradov and flight engineer Jeff Williams -- and then float into the Soyuz TMA-7 craft currently docked to the station's Zvezda module. Hatches between the Soyuz and station will be closed at 1:35 p.m. EDT (1735 GMT).

The homeward-bound men will work together over the next couple of hours to power up the Soyuz, active the craft's systems, remove docking clamps, depressurize the vestibule between the capsule and station and perform other work to ready for undocking.

Vinogradov, Williams and Pontes launched to the station last week on Soyuz TMA-8. After the brief stay, Pontes is going home today while Expedition 13 is left behind for a half-year tour-of-duty on the outpost.

The command to begin opening hooks and latches firmly holding Soyuz to its Earth-facing docking port will be sent at 4:25 p.m. EDT (2025 GMT). Physical separation between the two craft occurs three minutes later as the capsule backs away at just one-tenth of a meter per second.

After moving about 20 meters from the station, the Soyuz engines will fire for eight seconds to execute the so-called separation burn to propel the craft a substantial distance from the complex.

About two-and-a-half hours later, Soyuz will be 19 kilometers from the station. The capsule's engines will ignite for the deorbit burn to brake from space. The onboard computers will initiate an engine firing at 6:58 p.m. EDT (2258 GMT) that slows the ship just enough to slip out of orbit for the return to Earth.

Shortly before reaching the top of the atmosphere, the Soyuz's three distinct modules will separate at 7:22 p.m. EDT (2322 GMT) under computer command. The crew will be located in the Descent Module, which is sandwiched between the forward Orbital Module containing the docking mechanism and the rear Instrumentation and Propulsion Module housing the engines and avionics.

The Descent Module orients itself to point the ablative heat shield in the direction of travel to protect the craft and crew from the intense plunge back to Earth. At 7:25 p.m. EDT (2325 GMT), the moment of Entry Interface occurs as the capsule hits the upper fringes of the atmosphere for the fiery re-entry.

During the fall to Earth, the Orbital Module and Instrumentation and Propulsion Module will burn up in the atmosphere.

Six minutes after Entry Interface, the crew will experience the period of maximum G-loads during entry as they feel the tug of Earth's gravity for the first time since launch.

At 7:33 p.m. EDT (2333 GMT), the onboard computers will start a commanded sequence for deployment of the capsule's parachutes at an altitude of about 10 kilometers. Two "pilot" parachutes are unfurled first, extracting a 24-square-meter drogue parachute. Within 16 seconds, the craft's fall will slow from 230 meters per second to about 80 m/s.

The parachute deployment creates a gentle spin for the Soyuz as it dangles underneath the drogue chute, assisting in the capsule's stability in the final minutes before touchdown.

The drogue chute will be jettisoned, allowing the main parachute to be deployed. It is connected to the Descent Module by two harnesses, covers an area of about 1,000 square meters and slows descent to 7.2 meters/second.

Initially, the Descent Module will hang underneath the main parachute at a 30-degree angle with respect to the horizon for aerodynamic stability, but the bottommost harness will be severed a few minutes before landing, allowing the Descent Module to hang vertically through touchdown.

At an altitude of just over 5 kilometers, the heat shield will be cast free. That is followed by dumping of any residual propellant from the Soyuz.

Once the heat shield is gone, the Soyuz altimeter is exposed to the surface of the Earth. Using a reflector system, signals are bounced to the ground from the Soyuz and reflected back, providing the capsule's computers updated information on altitude and rate of descent.

At an altitude of about 12 meters, cockpit displays will tell the crew to prepare for the soft landing engine firing. Just one meter above the surface, and just seconds before touchdown, the six solid propellant engines are fired in a final braking maneuver, enabling the Soyuz to land to complete its mission, settling down at a velocity of about 1.5 meters per second.

Touchdown is expected at 7:48 p.m. EDT (2348 GMT) on the steppes of north-central Kazakhstan, about 62 minutes before sunrise at the landing site. Expedition 12 concludes with a duration of 189 days, 19 hours and 53 minutes.

A group of Russian military helicopters carrying the recovery forces, including a U.S. flight surgeon and astronaut support personnel, should arrive soon after landing to help the crew exit the capsule.

Each crew member will be placed in special reclining chairs near the capsule for initial medical tests and begin readapting to Earth's gravity. They will be transferred into a portable medical tent erected near the touchdown point where the three men can remove their spacesuits.

Post-landing plans call for the crew to be flown from the site in helicopters within two hours of touchdown.

Read our earlier status center coverage.