Flávio Dieguez and Aline Bastos
Special Report

Star City (Cidade das Estrelas) (Russia) – The three astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) who will return to planet earth this weekend, the Brazilian Marcos Pontes, the Russian Valery Tokarev and the American Willian McArtur, will make the final leg of their journey in a round capsule weighing 2.9 tons containing four square meters of interior space.

The ground "rescue" team, consisting of nine MI-8 Russian helicopters and three all-terrain vehicles, has established three windows for touchdown which should occur near the city of Arclalic in Kazakhstan. The first "window" is at 3:56 am (Moscow time) on Sunday, April 9 (which is 9:56 pm on Saturday night, April 8, in Brasilia; (7:56 EST)).

Each different "window" corresponds to a different orbit by the landing capsule and as each orbit has a different trajectory the landing area can vary widely. For that reason, the rescue helicopters have a range of over 400 kilometers.

Translation: Allen Bennett