By Madhuri Dey
Almaty, Kazakhstan, Mar 21, (THAINDIAN NEWS) A spacecraft, that was carrying in it astronauts from Russia and the United States, has managed to secure a safe landing in one of the remotest towns in Kazakh, called Arkalyk. The landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan marked the end of a long stay in space for Jeffrey Williams, a space station commander with the NASA, and Maxim Surayev, a flight engineer. They had been in space for almost six months before returning to the frozen steppes on earth. The two astronauts made a safe landing on earth in their Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft.

Jeffrey Willimas and Maxim Surayev landed in Arkalyk at around 5:24 in the morning. After landing, the astronauts had to face very stiff winds and freezing weather, almost minus 20 degree centigrade, expected at that part of the earth in this time of the year. The landing was a relatively safe one, and the astronauts did not have to face any hurdles, except for the fact that their spaceship got rolled over by the winds once it touched the ground, but that was more or less predictable, considering the velocity of the winds. Before landing, the Soyuz slowed down, and circled the area that served as the landing zone for the craft.

The spacecraft was dragged by the strong winds over almost 20 meters of ground, over the 1.2 meter deep snow that it landed upon. Thankfully, the astronauts inside the craft were not hurt, and the emergency teams that were present on the site manged to reach the spot pretty quickly, although only the helicopters could, as the deep snow did not permit access to the recovery vehicles.