The 27th crew is back on Earth, tomorrow is the third spacewalk of the Endeavor mission

After a 157-day stay on the space station, Dimitri Konratiev, Cady Coleman and Paolo Nespoli return to Keder Haaretz in the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft

After a 157-day stay on the space station, Dimitri Konratiev, Cady Coleman and Paolo Nespoli return to Keder Haaretz in the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft

Immediately after leaving the dock at the space station, the commander of the Soyuz, Kondratiev caused the Soyuz and the shuttle to stay in a close orbit, and to stop relative to the flight of the two spacecraft. This allowed the European Space Agency man Nespoli to photograph the station (and the shuttle Endeavor) from a distance of about 300 meters.

Immediately after Nespoli finished the photographs designed to examine the condition of the space station, the Soyuz performed an engine ignition maneuver and landed on the Kazostan steppe.

Now the three members of the 28th crew remain on the station, Commander Andrei Borisenko, Cosmonaut Alexander Samokutiev and NASA Astronaut Ron Garan. Three new crew members, Russian Sergey Volkov, American Mike Possum and Japanese Satoshi Furukawa will launch from Baikonur on June 7 and arrive at the station on June 9.

And in the process, the Endeavor crew on the STS-134 mission performed the sixth longest spacewalk in history.

Astronauts Drew Fussell and Mike Fink completed an eight-hour, seven-minute spacewalk in which they performed all the planned tasks, including filling the station's cooling system with ammonia, and lubricating the solar collectors' drive system engines.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) the third spacewalk out of four is expected.