In this September we got a wonderful chance to meet the crew of spaceship “Soyuz MC-08”, consisting of Oleg Artem’ev, Andrew Feustel (USA), Richard R. Arnold (USA), to whom we had bidden farewell from the spaceport Baikonur earlier this year.
We were participating in the jubilee expedition “Locate the Fallen Star”, as it was 20thon the count.The whole process turned into a big party, as Oleg happens to be a big friend to a number of organizers of expedition.
Those who were on the Baikonur during the launch of Soyuz MC-08 should remember a large company of friends who decided to bid farewell to Oleg before his setoff for space. Most of them decided to meet him on his return from orbit, where Oleg had spent six months.
This time we arrived to the special organized camp before the landing, which had been set up in a very good location, just two kilometers away from the zone of landing. Our camp can be seen on some of the official photos of Roscosmos, depicting the process of touch-down of spaceship.
We had a special space-like atmosphere in the camp. Many of team members had that or another connection with space occupation and were telling different interesting space stories during the supper. Among other participants of the expedition were fans of astronomy who had brought telescopes to make observations of clear night sky. Following tradition, we were also watching the fly-by of International Space Station over the camp area.
The landing itself, because of which we had crossed 500 km of prairie road, was taking place on the evening of the 4thof October. The weather conditions were great and cosmonauts landed successfully. They were taken out of the spaceship, seated into special chairs. Meanwhile all the participants of the expedition formed into the big and long corridor with each holding a flag depicting a slogan of the expedition: First artificial Earth satellite – Landing of Oleg Artem'ev. We were applauding to the cosmonauts while they were transformed on the hands to the medical tent for special physical exercises and changing of clothes. In one hour and half cosmonauts were transformed by the helicopters to the town of Karaganda, from where they embarked on a flight to Moscow. Needless to say how happy we were about the safe return of the space crew.
It is worthy to mention we prepared a special surprise – flash mob, during which our team formed letters of the name Oleg on the lawn with the cars at the moment of descent of space capsule. The pictures of it were taken from air and officially published. We hope that Oleg did like our surprise.
The impact of this landing expedition on our tourists was absolutely great, which happens to a unique adventure in the whole world. You can relive the whole tour, step by step, in the photo gallery of our album - Landing of Oleg Artem’ev, 4thof October, 2018.
