A Soyuz capsule carrying American Mike Hopkins and Russians Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy has returned to Earth after they spent nearly six months on the International Space Station. The capsule touched down onto the snow-covered steppes in Kazakhstan as scheduled.

Heavy snowfalls and strong winds at the landing site had prompted Russian space officials to consider putting off the landing by a day, but they eventually decided to proceed with the original plan.

While they were in space, the two Russian Cosmonauts took the Olympic torch on a spacewalk, tethered to their spacesuits.