A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying U.S. astronaut Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin landed safely on the Kazakh steppe at 8:53 a.m.(local time) Monday.
The Expedition 32 crew, which arrived at the International Space Station on May 17, returned to Earth after spending 123 days aboard the research complex.
During their mission on the ISS, the trio orbited Earth 2,000 times and traveled 52,906,428 miles, according to NASA.
Padalka, who has logged 711 days in orbit, making him the world's fourth most experienced astronaut, piloted the craft back to Earth, according to NASA.
NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide remain on the ISS. Williams took command of Expedition 33 after the Soyuz spacecraft separated from the space station.
They will be joined in October by NASA's Kevin Ford and Russia's Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin.
The U.S., which retired its space shuttles last year, relies on Russia to fly the astronauts to the ISS at a cost of $60 million per person, Reuters reported.
Check out the pictures of the safe landing of the Expedition 32 crew.
