ISS Astronauts, Space Tourist to Land Early Saturday

Two professional astronauts and an American billionaire are preparing to leave the International Space Station (ISS) and make a weekend return to their home planet.

U.S. entrepreneur Charles Simonyi - the world's fifth space tourist to the ISS - will join the station's outgoing Expedition 14 commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin aboard a Russian Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft for a planned 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT) landing Saturday northeast of the city of Arkalyk in Kazakhstan.

The three spaceflyers are returning to Earth one day later than scheduled, and at an alternate site, after heavy rainfall flooded their primary landing zone.

"I think we've executed the mission plan and then some," Lopez-Alegria said as control of the ISS shifted over to its new Expedition 15 crew this week.

Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin are concluding a seven-month mission and relinquished command of the station to Expedition 15 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineers Oleg Kotov and Sunita Williams, who has lived aboard the ISS since December and is staying on for part of the next six-month mission.

"This is really one of the greatest pleasures for a human," Yurchikhin said as he took command of the ISS. "I am sure we're ready to continue the full tradition of station."

Mission's end nears

During Expedition 14, the astronauts staged a record five spacewalks for an ISS crew, introduced the sport of golf to low-Earth orbit and welcomed a visiting space shuttle Discovery in December for an intense station assembly mission. When the three spaceflyers land Saturday, they will set yet two more records.

Lopez-Alegria, who already racked up five spacewalks during Expedition 14 - for a career total of 10 excursions - to become NASA's reigning champion, will set a new U.S. endurance record for the longest single spaceflight after 215 continuous days in orbit. But setting the new records, he told reporters this week, was not the purpose of his spaceflight and occurred by luck and happenstance.

Simonyi, 58, will set his own record of sorts. By the luck of orbital mechanics and a rained out primary landing site, his planned 11-day spaceflight was extended three extra days and will make him the most experienced private spaceflyer to date once he lands.

The former Microsoft software developer and lifelong spaceflight enthusiast is paying between $20 million and $25 million for 14 days in orbit - 12 of them aboard the ISS - under an agreement between Russia's Federal Space Agency and the Virginia-based firm Space Adventures. He launched towards the ISS on April 7 with the Expedition 15 crew and has been chronicling the flight via his mission Web site: www.charlesinspace.com.

"I am working with a new team with Misha and Michael," Simonyi said of the returning Expedition 14 astronauts, referring to Tyurin by his nickname, during a radio broadcast posted to his Web site this week. "We are just getting used to each other's style and I'm just really looking forward to working with them to perform the return."

Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin launched into orbit with U.S. space tourist Anousheh Ansari and began their long-duration mission with European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter, who was already aboard the ISS in September and returned to Earth in December aboard Discovery once Williams arrived.

The Expedition 14 commander has said in the past that the familiar tug of gravity, which would allow him to lie down in his own bed for the first time in half a year, is one of the things he's looking forward to most after his long spaceflight.

"I would start with the sensation of lying down, of pasta al dente in my mouth, the sensation of my seven-year-old son hugging me," Lopez-Alegria told Florida Today Monday when asked what he missed the most during his flight. "All of those things I miss, and the list could be really long."

NASA will broadcast landing day activities for Simonyi and the Expedition 14 crew live via NASA TV beginning at 1:30 a.m. EDT (0530 GMT). Click here for SPACE.com's NASA TV feed and ISS mission updates.

• VIDEO: Space Tourist Charles Simonyi, Expedition 15 Crew Launch into Orbit
• Complete International Space Station Mission Coverage
• Space News TV From the 23^rd National Space Symposium