A Soyuz space capsule carrying a 3-man multinational crew has touched down on the southern steppes of Kazakhstan, bringing an end to their 193-day mission to the International Space Station. Around a dozen recovery helicopters zeroed into the vast uncultivated land mass Sunday afternoon, where NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, Russia's Oleg Kononenko and Dutchman Andre Kuipers landed in their Russian-made capsule. The voyage from the space station started 3 1/2 hours earlier, when it undocked and began a slow, gentle drift away. It made a perfect landing in the still and summery weather at 2:14 pm local time (08:17 GMT), right on schedule. Russians Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin and U.S. astronaut Joseph Acaba are expected to remain onboard the space station for a further three months, according to a report of the Associated Press.
