Soyuz with two-man crew lands safely in Kazakhstan

Leaving crewmate Peggy Whitson behind in orbit for an extended mission, a Russian cosmonaut and his French co-pilot undocked from the International Space Station early Friday and plunged back to Earth, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 196-day mission. Under a clear early evening sky, Soyuz MS-03 commander Oleg Novitskiy and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, tightly strapped into their seats in the ferry ship’s crew module, descended under a large orange and white parachute before settling to a jarring rocket-assisted touchdown 90 miles east of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 10:10 a.m. EDT (8:10 p.m. local time). More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 3)