Soyuz brings three station fliers home to pinpoint landing

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying three station fliers returned to Earth from the International Space Station Sunday, dropping to a bullseye landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan.

Two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA flight engineer bid their three space station crewmates farewell Sunday, strapped into their Soyuz ferry craft, undocked from the lab complex and fell back to Earth, making a pinpoint landing in Kazakhstan to close out a 125-day voyage.

Descending through a clear blue sky under a large orange-and-white parachute, the charred Soyuz TMA-04M descent module settled to a rocket-assisted touchdown near the town of Arkalyk at 10:53 p.m. EDT (8:53 a.m. Monday local time).

NASA astronaut Joseph Acaba relaxes and pumps his fist after being helped out of the Soyuz TMA-04M descent module following a flawless landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan

The final stages of the descent were carried live on television relayed through the Russian mission control center and NASA's satellite network, showing the last-second firing of the crew's braking rockets and billowing clouds of dust and smoke as the module touched down and the parachute collapsed.

Russian recovery teams deployed near the landing site quickly rushed in, reporting the descent module had tipped over on its side, a relatively common occurrence.

They quickly got to work opening the main hatch to help Soyuz commander Gennady Padalka, flight engineer Sergei Revin and Joseph Acaba out of the cramped module after four months in the weightlessness of space. Padalka, the first out, looked relaxed and in good spirits as he rested in a recliner and enjoyed a cup of tea. Revin and Acaba quickly followed suit and all three were given quick medical exams before a two-hour helicopter flight to Kustanai.

At that point, the crew planned to split up, with Padalka and Revin flying back to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City near Moscow while Acaba flies back to the Johnson Space Center in Houston aboard a NASA jet.

Touchdown on the steppe of Kazakhstan marked the conclusion of a 53-million-mile 2,000-orbit voyage that began with liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on May 15.

It also moved Padalka up to No. 4 on the list of most experienced space fliers, with 711 days in orbit over four space flights. Acaba has now logged 138 days aloft during two missions while Revin's mark will stand at 125 days for his first flight.

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Soyuz brings three station fliers home to pinpoint landing