After a historic walk in space, the capsule of the Russian spaceship Soyuz that was carrying three astronauts and the olympic torch, landed today in Kazakhstan, a little less than three months before the Olympic Games in Sochi start.
After a mission lasting 166 days in the International Space Station, the Russian Fyodor Giourtsichin, the Italian Parmitano Lucas, and the U.S. Naimpergk Karen returned to Earth as planned.
Hanging by a large white parachute, the Soyuz capsule landed in the Tzezkazgkan, in Kazakhstan, as shown by images broadcasted on the Russian television.
The torch, which remained off all four days in space, was inside a case that an employee of the Russian space agency Roskosmos hastened to open: “Behold the torch,” he said in front of cameras and photographers.
He then gave it to the commander of the Soyuz, a Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Gioutsichin, who had just come out of the spacecraft. A few minutes later two other astronauts came out of the Soyuz, the Italian Parmitano, Lucas, and U.S. Karen Naimpergk. The three of them stood side by side in front of a Russian flag, and a flag of the Sochi Olympic Games, that will be held from February 7 to 23 2014, between the Black Sea coast and mountains of the Russian Caucasus.
The “space torch” is one of the 16,000 torches which began a month ago in Russia. The Olympic flame traveled the farthest route ever (65,000 km ) to the Olympics and will be used for the lighting of the flame at the opening ceremony of the Games on February 7, 2014 in Sochi.
The Olympic torch has been transferred to a space shuttle before the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, and another time in Sydney in 2000, but has never went out in space until now.
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