On September 11, 2014 at 02:23 UTC the Russian “Soyuz TMA-12M” landing capsule landed safely in a distance of 148 kilometers south-east from the city of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan.

The spacecraft delivered to Earth the 3 members of ISS’s Expedition 40 – Russian cosmonauts Aleksandr Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev as well as American astronaut Steven Swanson.

photo by NASA

They spent in space 169 days, 05 hours, 06 minutes.

Three other ISS crew members – Russian cosmonaut Maksim Suraev, American astronaut Gregory Wiseman and German astronaut Alexander Gerst remained in orbit aboard the International Space Station as the Expedition 41 crew.

The undocking of Soyuz TMA-12M marked the end of Expedition 40 and the start of Expedition 41.