A Russian Soyuz capsule has landed safely 147 km southeast of the central Kazakh city of Zhezkazgan with three astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) after docking with the station for six months.

The Soyuz TMA-20 craft brought Russian cosmonaut and station commander Dmitry Kondratyev and flight engineers, American Catherine Coleman and Italian Paolo Nespoli.

Irina Manshilina, spokeswoman for Russian Misson Control said, “They have landed. Everything was fine.” Kondratyev appeared first followed by Coleman and Nespoli from the space craft.

Before returning to Earth, Kondratyev flew flew the spacecraft out to about 200 metres from the ISS while Nespoli took pictures and recorded video of the U. S. space shuttle Endeavour, which is currently docking with the station as part of its final mission before its is retired.

The three new crew members, Sergei Volkov, NASA astronaut Michael Fossum and Japan’s Satoshi Furukawa are scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on June 7.

Endeavour with its crew members, including Commander Mark Kelly, pilot Greg Johnson, spacewalkers Andrew Feustel, Michael Fincke and Greg Chamitoff, and Italian astronaut Roberto Vittori are expected to land on June 1 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.