Station crew and tourist aim for overnight landing

Outgoing space station commander Mike Fincke, flight engineer Yury Lonchakov and space tourist Charles Simonyi bid farewell to the Expedition 19 crew Tuesday and boarded a Soyuz ferry craft for re-entry and landing Wednesday in Kazakhstan.

Fincke and Lonchakov, launched to the International Space Station last Oct. 12, are wrapping up a 178-day stay off planet as the core members of the lab's 18th full-time crew. Simonyi, a wealthy software developer making his second paid trip to the station, took off March 26 with Expedition 19 commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Michael Barratt.

After a busy day of packing and readying the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft for re-entry, Fincke, Lonchakov and Simonyi shared hugs and handshakes with Padalka, Barratt and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata before floating into the ferry craft around 8:45 p.m. EDT. Hatches were closed a few moments later to set the stage for undocking just before midnight. Landing is expected around 3:16 a.m. Wednesday.

Undocking from the downward-facing port of the Russian Zarya module is targeted for around 11:55 p.m. EDT this evening. After moving a safe distance away and reaching the proper point in their orbit, Lonchakov will oversee a planned four-minute 21-second rocket firing at 2:24 a.m. that will slow the craft by about 258 mph and put it on the proper re-entry trajectory.

After falling to an altitude of about 87 miles, the three modules making up the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft will separate and the central descent module will enter the discernible atmosphere at an altitude of about 62 miles at 2:52 a.m. If all goes well, the module's main parachute will deploy shortly after 3 a.m. for a rocket-assisted touchdown at 3:16:29 a.m.