The 17th crew members and the sixth space tourist returned to Earth

Sergey Volkov and Oleg Kononenko returned to Earth this morning and space tourist Richard Garriott was with them. Volkov and Garriott are the first two sons of active astronauts to ever go into space - Volkov as a Russian space agency man and Garriott - as a paid space tourist

Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fink, along with flight engineers Yuri Lunkhakov and Greg Tsiimitoff, took command of the National Space Station on Wednesday. The crew changeover ceremony took place at 14:00 PM EST, during which the 17th crew handed over command to the 18th crew and its members packed up their belongings at the National Space Station.

Wednesday was the 17th team's last full day. The space tourist Richard Garriott is also returning to DHA after arriving in the spacecraft a week ago together with the members of the 18th crew. Griot, Volokov and Kononenko will land tomorrow in the Kazakhstan region in the Soyuz TM-12 spacecraft. They are scheduled to detach from the space station tonight at 20:36 EST (02:36 Israel time) and land tomorrow, Friday, at 11:36 EST (17:36 Israel time).

Chaimitoff will remain at the Orbiting Laboratory in orbit around NASA until the Space Shuttle Endeavor brings his replacement, Sandra Magnus, on mission STS-126 in November. He and Pink will practice the photography techniques they will use when Endeavor arrives at the station.

As mentioned on the flight tonight there is a rare meeting between two astronauts whose fathers served as astronauts. Volkov is the son of Alexander Volkov, who served, among other things, on the Mir space station, and Garriott, a video game developer, is the son of a veteran NASA astronaut - Owen Garriott.

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The "Soyuz TM-12" capsule, with an American space tourist and two cosmonauts inside, landed safely this morning in Kazakhstan. The successful landing interrupts a chain of failures upon entering the Earth that have recently raised doubts regarding the safety of flight in "Soyuz" spacecraft.

"I feel great, the entry into the atmosphere was really smooth" Richard Garriott smiled and said, after the rescue team took him out of the capsule. According to reports, Garriott paid $35 million for a 12-day journey into space.

A joint rescue team for the Russian Space Agency and NASA arrived at the landing site, which the astronauts reported by reading their position in the GPS system, in helicopters immediately after landing. The astronauts were seated on reclining chairs for medical examinations at a nearby facility.