A TMA-5 landing capsule carrying a three-man crew undocked from the international space station late Sunday, starting a lightning journey back to Earth. Russian helicopters and planes were on call, along with a U.S. medical team, in the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan as the crew closed the hatches and prepared to undock the capsule from the orbiting station and begin the descent to Earth. The capsule carrying Italian Roberto Vittori, Russian Salizhan Sharipov and American Leroy Chiao was expected to land near the town of Arkalyk, in the northern steppes of Kazakhstan, early Monday morning. Vittori, a European Space Agency astronaut, had spent 10 days on the station, while Sharipov and Chiao have been on the orbiting lab since October. Sharipov undocked the ship manually, as was planned, and pulled it back to a save distance before the capsule started its descent, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Remaining behind on the station will be Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and American astronaut John Phillips, whose six-month mission is slated to include welcoming the first U.S. space shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster two years ago. --More 2330 Local Time 2030 GMT
