Two cosmonauts and an astronaut landed back on Earth from ISS

Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut on 11 March 2014 safely landed back to earth at Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan. They returned back to Earth in Soyuz capsule after staying more than half a year aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Initially, due to bad weather, the undocking and landing was postponed but later were allowed to go ahead with the landing as per the schedule.

People who returned from the International Space Station
• Russian cosmonauts - Oleg Kotov (ISS commander) and Sergei Ryazansky (flight engineer)
• American astronaut of NASA - Mike Hopkins (flight engineer)
   
Trio carried a Sochi Olympic torch into open space and with this landing they have ended their 166-day mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). They launched their mission together into the space on 25 September 2014. Kotov and Ryazansky on 9 November 2014 carried the unlit Olympic torch for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. They took the unlit torch outside the station during a spacewalk.

Astronaut and Cosmonaut is the term used for the same person, who are trained to be a part of a space flight programme. Both are two different terms meaning the same and the main difference between them is
• An astronaut is a person who has the task of piloting and servicing the space craft and he has a sufficient understanding of life in the space. It can be used for any person who goes to space
• A cosmonaut is the person who is tasked to perform outside Earth’s atmosphere and the term is used by the Russian Federal Space Agency. The term is used for those who carry their tasks outside the atmosphere of the planet Earth.

Other important people in the space were
• Yuri Gagarin – first person to be in the space
• Alexei Leonov – first cosmonaut to perform space walk
• Valeri Polyakov – person who spent about two years in space to person research work and he was also the first cosmonaut to be on a mission