3 Return From Space Station

ALMATY, Kazakhstan — A Soyuz capsule landed safely before dawn today in the steppes of Kazakhstan, bringing a U.S.-Russian trio back from the International Space Station.

“All is fine, it was apparently a soft landing. They landed as planned near Arkalyk,” a mission control spokesman said by telephone from Moscow.

Astronaut Michael Fincke and cosmonaut Gennady Padalka had spent almost 188 days in space. With them was Russian Yuri Shargin, who flew to the space station 10 days ago with a replacement crew, Salizhan Sharipov of Russia and Leroy Chiao of the United States.

Padalka and Fincke had carried out four spacewalks, including one crucial mission to repair a gyroscope that orients the station in space.

Russian spacecraft have become the sole means of transport to the space station since February 2003. The U.S. space shuttle fleet was grounded after Columbia disintegrated over Texas that month, killing all seven people on board.