A Russian capsule carrying two astronauts and a cosmonaut who spent nearly six months aboard the international space station has landed in Kazakhstan Central Asia, nearly 250 miles from their target.
Kenneth Bowersox and Donald Pettit became the first NASA astronauts to return in a foreign spacecraft - and to foreign soil. Guiding them home was their Russian crewmate, Nikolai Budarin.
It was a tenser than usual end to a mission for the US space agency, not only because of the change in venue prompted by the Columbia space shuttle disaster, but because this new Soyuz model had never gone through a descent before.
The crew were also making the first re-entry into earth since the shuttle was destroyed over Texas on February 1st and its seven astronauts were killed.
Because of Columbia, "the eyes of the American public and Congress and everyone are going to be on this landing," said Dr JD Polk, a flight surgeon specialised in emergency medicine.
Bowersox, Pettit and Budarin were supposed to return to Earth in a much roomier and smoother space shuttle, but switched to the Russian Soyuz following the Columbia tragedy and the grounding of the NASA fleet. Almost two extra months were added to their mission to give their replacements enough time to arrive aboard another Soyuz.