--- title: Happy Landings! Astronauts Return to Earth from Space Station description: A capsule containing American astronaut Terry Virts, Anton Shkaplerov of Russia and Samantha Cristoforetti of Italy landed in Kazakhstan on Thursday, bringing the three back to Earth after their flight home was delayed by a faulty Russian rocket canonical: https://time.com/3917865/astronauts-land-kazakhstan/ author: TIME Photo article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-11T16:18:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:03:06.073Z article:section: Science og:title: See 3 Astronauts Land on Earth After Journey from Space Station og:description: American astronaut Terry Virts was one of them og:url: https://time.com/3917865/astronauts-land-kazakhstan/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte3d6e64d82a67c0c/6988541cf887dc4a9ae90e28/space-station-landing-astronauts-capsule-2015.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Expedition 43 Soyuz TMA-15M Landing og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: See 3 Astronauts Land on Earth After Journey from Space Station twitter:description: American astronaut Terry Virts was one of them twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte3d6e64d82a67c0c/6988541cf887dc4a9ae90e28/space-station-landing-astronauts-capsule-2015.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Happy Landings! Astronauts Return to Earth from Space Station by [TIME Photo](https://time.com/author/time-photo/) ## TIME Photo Jun 11, 2015 4:18 PM UTC  The Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft lands with Expedition 43 commander Terry Virts of NASA, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from European Space Agency (ESA) near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on June 11, 2015. The Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft lands with Expedition 43 commander Terry Virts of NASA, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from European Space Agency (ESA) near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on June 11, 2015.Bill Ingalls—NASA by [TIME Photo](https://time.com/author/time-photo/) ## TIME Photo Jun 11, 2015 4:18 PM UTC  The Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft lands with Expedition 43 commander Terry Virts of NASA, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from European Space Agency (ESA) near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on June 11, 2015. Bill Ingalls—NASA  Commander Terry Virts of NASA is helped out of the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft just minutes after landing in Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on June 11, 2015. Bill Ingalls—NASA  Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti rests in a chair outside the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft after landing in Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on June 11, 2015. Bill Ingalls—NASA  Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov is helped out of the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft after landing in Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on June 11, 2015. Bill Ingalls—NASA  From left: Terry Virts, Anton Shkaplerov, and Samantha Cristoforetti sit outside the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft in Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on June 11, 2015. Bill Ingalls—NASA ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3917865/astronauts-land-kazakhstan/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3917865/astronauts-land-kazakhstan/"},"headline":"Happy Landings! 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