3 space station crew members prepare to return to Earth

Williams, 58, returns to Earth with a career total of 534 days in orbit, more time than any other astronaut in US history and 14th in the world.

The three men undocked from the ISS almost three and a half hours earlier after spending their mission largely conducting scientific experiments.

NASA’s Jeff Williams is returning to Earth after spending five-and-a-half months on the International Space Station with his Expedition 47/48 crewmates Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin.

Station commander Jeff Williams, with the US space agency, and flight engineers Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka, both with Russia’s Roscosmos agency, had pulled away from the space station hours earlier.

Williams first blasted to space aboard the shuttle Atlantis in 2000.

“Williams was instrumental in preparing the station for the future arrival of United States commercial crew spacecraft”, NASA said in a statement.

Williams, a grandfather, is also the oldest American to spend live on the space station. The team launched their expedition in March, and spent their time on the ISS contributing to experiments in biology and biotechnology, according to NASA. Two Russian ISS Progress cargo craft also docked to the station in April and July delivering tons of supplies. He, Rubins, and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, will operate the station for more than two weeks until the arrival of three new crew members.

The returning crew members will be replaced by USA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko, who are scheduled to blast off for the space station on September 23.