ISS crew lands, brings space-born flies to Earth

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Three crew members of the International Space Station have safely returned to Earth aboard a Soyuz-13M spacecraft, bringing back good memories and results of their 165-day shift in orbit – including a space-born generation of experimental fruit flies.

The spacecraft carrying the commander of the ISS Expedition 41 Russian cosmonaut Maksim Surayev, as well as two flight engineers, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst, landed some 80 km from Arkalyk, Kazakhstan.

As part of their mission, the crew completed some 2,640 orbits covering more than 70 million miles and have participated in a number of experiments, including breeding of fruit flies that could potentially shed light on long-term space flight effects on human beings.

Russian Cargo Ship Lifts Off For Space Station

An unmanned Russian cargo ship successfully lifted off for the International Space Station (ISS) on October 29.

The Progress 57 craft was launched atop a Soyuz rocket at 8:09 a.m. Prague time from the Russian-leased Baikonur facility in Kazakhstan.

"Everything looks good on the Soyuz booster and the Progress resupply ship," an announcer on the U.S. space agency's NASA TV said.

The launch came nine hours after a privately operated rocket exploded seconds after liftoff in the United States, causing the loss of cargo ship that was also bound for the ISS.

The explosion of the Antares was the first such accident since NASA turned to private operators to deliver cargo to the station, breaking a Russian monopoly that followed the retirement of the U.S. space shuttle fleet in 2011.

The Progress is delivering nearly three metric tons of propellant, oxygen, water, and other supplies to the station.