Three astronauts coming from the International Space Station (ISS) returned safely to Earth on Saturday onboard a Russian-made spacecraft.
Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who now holds the distinction of having spent the longest time in space, makes his way back to Earth along with ISS crewmates Aidyn Aimbetov of Kazakhstan and Andreas Mogensen of Denmark.
The three-man crew boarded the Soyuz TMA-16M space capsule, which safely touched down 90 miles southeast of Zhezkazgan in Kazakhstan. Commentators from NASA called the return of the astronauts a "bull's-eye landing."
"Landing has taken place," a representative from Russia's Roscosmos space agency said. "All is well."
The veteran cosmonaut Padalka captained the 44th expedition to the International Space Station.
On June 28, he broke the record for the total number of days spent in space when he reached his 879th day onboard the orbital facility. The former record-holder, fellow Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, logged a total of 803 days in space, which stood as the longest flight duration for 10 years.
Padalka's most recent space mission started on March 27 when he and fellow ISS-bound astronauts Mikhail Kornienko of Russia and Scott Kelly of the United States blasted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome.
Mogensen and Aimbetov both had a relatively short stay at the space station, having been launched into space in the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft on Sept. 2 and reaching the orbital facility two days later on Sept. 4.
Mogensen, an astronaut from the European Space Agency (ESA) is recognized as the first Danish citizen ever to travel to the ISS.
Space travel has remained one of the few instances where Russia and the Western nations continue to cooperate with each other despite the diplomatic repercussions caused by the Ukraine crisis. However, the international space program has met several difficulties in recent months.
Russia had instituted a temporary moratorium on all space missions for close to three months following the failure of one of the country's Progress freighter spacecraft in April.
Ground controllers lost contact with the ill-fated spaceship moments after its launch, eventually burning up in the Earth's atmosphere. This event forced several astronauts who were scheduled to make the journey back to Earth to spend an additional month on the International Space Station.
