Astronauts are back from space – level 3

22-03-2013 06:00

Three International Space Station crew have returned to Earth safely. The Russian Soyuz capsule carrying them landed in Kazakhstan a day later than planned due to poor weather conditions.

The Russo-American trio Kevin Ford, Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin had spent 144 days aboard the space station and clocked up about 61 million miles in space. The crew's descent took just under four hours. NASA reported that the deorbit burn had gone flawlessly, with the capsule landing upright almost hitting the bulls-eye landing spot through thick fog. The crew are said to be doing well and will be transported to a post-flight rehabilitation centre.

Interesting words: capsule (part of a spacecraft in which people live), clock up (achieve a particular number or amount), descent (going down), deorbit burn (travelling back to Earth), flawlessly (perfect), upright (standing straight up), bulls-eye (centre of a target).