European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Alexander Gerst (R, on gangway) of Germany disembarks from a plane as he arrives at the military part of the Cologne-Bonn airport, Germany, 20 December 2018. After 197 days in space, Alexander Gerst, who served as commander of the International Space Station ISS until his return, landed safely in a Soyuz MS-09 capsule near Karaganda in the steppe of Kazakhstan earlier this 20 December morning. A special aircraft brought him back to Germany with a stopover in Norway. After his return to earth, the 42-year-old will spend the next few days at the space medical research centre 'envihab' in Cologne, where he will be jointly supervised by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., or DLR) and the European Astronaut Centre (EAC).
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