Three astronauts landed safely in the Kazakh steppe aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule on Tuesday after a stay of over five months aboard the International Space Station, Russian mission control said. American Mike Fossum, Japan's Satoshi Furukawa and Russia's Sergei Volkov touched down outside the remote settlement of Arkalyk in Kazakhstan just before sunrise after undocking from the ISS earlier in the day.
"It has landed," said a message flashed on the screen at Moscow mission control shown in a live relay. State television pictures showed the astronauts extracted from the capsule apparently in good health. The Soyuz capsule landed on its side rather than its bottom after its descent to Earth with a parachute, mission control said, adding that this was not unusual. The landing was on time and on target at 0226 GMT. The hitch-free landing of the Soyuz is a boost for the Russian space programme.