NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan, a Pennsylvania resident, landed safely back on Earth early Friday morning in Kazakhstan.

Morgan, who cast the Lawrence County’s first vote from space last year, spent the last nine months aboard the International Space Station. He and fellow NASA astronaut Jessica Meir as well as Russian Oleg Skripochka, returned to Earth on a day which coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 13 splashdown following a near-tragedy and aborted lunar mission. The crew’s spacecraft landed at approximately 1:16 a.m. EST (11:16 a.m. in Kazakhstan) to bright, sunny skies and about 60-degree weather.

Morgan was the last astronaut pulled from the spacecraft. All three were tended to by doctors as the astronauts sat in chairs to regain equilibrium. Morgan, after spending the last nine months in space, now owns the fourth-longest single duration mission by an American astronaut. He was able to talk on the telephone after landing.

The crew will return by Russian helicopters to the recovery staging city in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, where they will split up. Morgan and Meir will board a NASA plane located in the adjacent city of Kyzlorda, Kazakhstan, for a flight back to Houston. Skripochka will board a Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center aircraft in Baikonur to return to his home in Star City, Russia.