Soyuz spacecraft lands safely in Kazakhstan

MOSCOW - A Soyuz spacecraft with a crew of three on board landed safely in southeastern Kazakhstan on Sunday, Russia's Mission Control Center said.

The Soyuz TMA-03M capsule, bringing home Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, US astronaut Donald Pettit and Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers, touched down at 12:15 Moscow time (0815 GMT) on the landing site some 147 km east of Jezkazgan city.

It undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) at 8:48 am Moscow time (0448 GMT) in an automatic mode.

Live broadcast from NASA TV showed that a search and rescue team helped the three astronauts get out of the module and put them on chair for a few minutes to adapt to the Earth's gravity.

The trio, who had spent 193 days in space, appeared calm and relaxed with smiling faces.

Russia's Soyuz TMA-05M rocket is scheduled to send another three-member crew, namely NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Russian cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko and Japanese astronaut Akihito Hoshide, to the ISS from the Baikonur space center on July 15.

The three newcomers will join the current ISS crew of Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin and NASA astronaut Joe Acaba, who have been in orbit since mid-May.