Spaceflight Participant Richard Garriott and Russian Cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko landed safely in Kazakhstan at 11:37 p.m., EDT after departing the International Space Station and a de-orbit burn aboard a Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft.Garriott, the 47-year-old son of a former NASA Skylab astronaut and a video game designer, paid $30 million for a round-trip flight to the ISS that began with an Oct. 12 launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard another Russian Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft. [Video on ISS]
In a historical milestone, Thursday's Soyuz descent united the world's first second generation space travelers. Volkov is the son of Alexander Volkov, a cosmonaut who served aboard Soviet and Russian space stations. Garriott's father, Owen Garriott, served aboard the American Skylab space station in 1973 as well as a 10-day space shuttle mission a decade later, reports The Houston Chronicle. More from the BBC, SpaceRef, and KXAN in Austin.
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