Peggy Annette Whitson, the first woman who became commander of the International Space Station, has given up her post as the new crew took over. Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov is the new commander of the Station, following a traditional hand-over ceremony. Expedition 16 Commander Peggy Whitson is expected to return to Earth on Saturday aboard the Soyuz spacecraft, together with two other crewmates.

“Thank you very much for such a pretty station, a beautiful station,” said Sergei Volkov, the new commander of the space station, during the Thursday ceremony. “We wish for you a safe trip back home and good luck.”

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson was the first female in command of the International Space Station and the first American to spend as much as 374 days in space as of Wednesday. At the same time, she holds the women’s world record for spacewalking, totaling 39 hours and 46 minutes during 6 spacewalks.

“I’m officially handing over the International Space Station over to Sergei Volkov, and I’m very happy to do so,” Whitson said during the televised ceremony. “We’ve had a really great privilege and honor to be here on the station.”

The Russian spacecraft Soyuz taking Whitson and her colleagues back to Earth will land in Kazahstan at around 4:30 a.m. ET on Saturday. Both crews on the space station prepare for Soyuz’s undocking. Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko and So-yeon Yi (the first South Korean to participate in a space mission) will accompany Whitson back to Earth. Whitson is married to Clarence Sams, Ph.D.

The new ISS commander Lt. Col. Sergey Volkov, the son of a famous cosmonaut, was selected for training as a test cosmonaut in 1997 and he has been training for missions to the International Space Station since 2000. He trained as the backup for Expedition 7 and 13.

He also trained for the primary crew of Expedition 11 until the station missions were reorganized following the Columbia accident. His father, 59-year-old cosmonaut Alexander Volkov, logged 391 days in space during one flight to the Salyut-7 space station and two flights to Mir in 1985, 1988 and 1991 respectively.

Volkov, Kononenko and Reisman will have about six weeks to make all the necessary preparations for the installation of a huge module of the new Japanese Kibo research laboratory that will be attached to the left side of the forward Harmony connecting module.