NASA astronaut Jonny Kim flew home with two Roscosmos cosmonauts from the International Space Station packed tight in their Soyuz spacecraft landing in the frozen steppes of Kazakhstan on Dec. 9 to complete an eight-month stay in space.

Kim officially became an astronaut in 2017. Expedition 72 and Expedition 73 marked Kim’s first visit to the ISS, where he served as a flight engineer and flight surgeon for eight months while helping to conduct a number of scientific and technological research projects.

She worked on preparations for the second, third, and fourth shuttle missions, and was a Cape Crusader at the Kennedy Space Center on a team of astronauts who oversaw vehicle and payload readiness for each shuttle mission on behalf of the assigned crews.

After eight months in orbit, NASA astronaut Jonny Kim is about to depart the International Space Station (ISS) for the journey back to Earth. Kim will be traveling home alongside Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky aboard the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft.

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim recorded time-lapse footage of aurora, lightning and city lights illuminating the night-side of Earth from the International Space Station. Credit: NASA