Specialists gather in Kazakhstan to prepare for astronauts' return

07/04/2006 - 11h45

Flávio Dieguez
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Moscow - American, Russian, and Brazilian specialists expect to meet today (7) in the city of Kustonay, in Kazakhstan. The group in charge of coordinating the Centennial Missionhe informed this morning that the purpose of the meeting is to prepare the recovery plan for the return of the Brazilian astronaut, Marcos César Pontes, who has spent a week in space, and his colleagues, Valery Tokarev, from Russia, and William McArthur, from the United States, who were part of the International Space Station (ISS) Mission 12 and have been in space for six months.

The spacecraft that will be transporting the astronauts is expected to land at around 3 A.M. (local time).on Sunday (9) near Arcatic, another city in Kazakhstan, around 200 kilometers north of Baikonur, close to the Russian border. Two hours after their arrival, the astronauts will be taken by military helicopters to an undisclosed spot in Kazakhstan. From there they will board a Russian military plane for Moscow.

Translation: David Silberstein