Soyuz spacecraft lands in Kazakhstan

A Soyuz TMA-16 spaceship carrying two astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) has successfully landed in Kazakhstan, the Russian space agency's mission control center outside Moscow said Thursday.

After more than three hours of automatic flight, the spacecraft's reentry vehicle landed as scheduled at around 2:25 p.m. Moscow time (1125 GMT) near the Kazak town of Arkalyk, Xinhua reported.

The spaceship undocked from the station at 11:03 Moscow time (0803 GMT), with Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev and U.S. astronaut Jeff Williams on aboard.

Surayev and Williams parachuted to the designated landing site in the reentry vehicle, said the NAST website. After preliminary medical examinations, they are to fly to Moscow to meet coworkers and families.

It was the first time in almost ten years for a landing capsule to bring back only two astronauts rather than three. The third vacancy seat has taken some additional cargoes from the ISS.

The two astronauts, who have been on a space mission for about 169 days, received two U.S. space shuttles and two Russian cargo spaceships. Surayev also performed one space walk together with his Russian colleagues.

Russian Oleg Kotov, Japanese Soichi Noguchi and American Timothy Creamer will continue to work in orbit, until a Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft delivers three more astronauts to the ISS on April 2.