A Soyuz space capsule carrying an American, a Russian and a Spaniard to Earth from the International Space Station landed smoothly and on target yesterday in Kazakhstan, but bad weather delayed the crew's return to Moscow.
The three-and-a-half hour trip to Earth was only the second time that a US astronaut has come home in a Russian craft and landed on foreign soil. Because the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia in February put NASA manned space flights on hold, the Russian Soyuz capsules have been the linchpin of the space station program.
American Ed Lu and Russian Yuri Malenchenko, who flew to the space station nearly six months ago in the same Soyuz, and Spaniard Pedro Duque, who arrived at the station eight days ago on a different capsule, emerged smiling and appeared healthy.
``Everything went great. We were very fortunate. It was as smooth a landing as could have been hoped for,'' said General Vladimir Popov, who heads the team responsible for Russia's space search-and-rescue operations.
NASA spokesman Ron Navias agreed.
``It was a dream landing. It is almost as if they hit the x-mark on the ground,'' he said.
Bad weather in the Kazakh capital Astana forced helicopters carrying the crew, officials and journalists to turn back to the landing site near Arkalyk. They were hoping for the skies to clear so they could make their way back to Moscow, where top space officials and family members were waiting for them.
Duque was presented with an apple, the symbol of Kazakhstan, after the landing. Malenchenko received tea. All three space travelers appeared tired but happy.
``It is great to be back home. The landing went just fine,'' Lu said, smiling.
The Spaniard, speaking Russian, said the landing ``was very soft, almost like training,'' adding that he would have loved to have stayed up in space longer.
Space officials were pleased that the wild ride of the last Soyuz descent in May, which ended with the American and Russian crew straying some 400km off-course due to a computer error, was avoided.
Russian aerospace engineers had said there was only a slim chance that this crew would suffer from the same computer malfunction that sent the station's previous inhabitants on such a steep trajectory home that their tongues rolled back in their mouths.
The May landing was so far off-target that more than two gut-wrenching hours passed before rescuers knew the men were safe.
The May landing rattled Russian space officials and NASA, which had sent their top administrators to Mission Control outside of Moscow to monitor the maiden return of the new model Soyuz with its first-ever US and Russian crew. It came just three months after Columbia broke apart during re-entry, killing all seven astronauts.
Malenchenko returned to Earth a married man, having wedded Texas resident Ekaterina Dmitriev by proxy while in space. The new bride watched video footage of the landing at Mission Control.
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