ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION<br/> <br />STORY: The Soyuz TMA-22 parachuted down onto the steppe in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan on Friday (April 27), landing on schedule and on target north of the town of Arkalyk after a three-hour descent from the orbital outpost. It touched down at 7:45 a.m. EDT (1145 GMT), less than four hours after undocking from the space station.<br/> <br />The cramped capsule brought veteran NASA astronaut Daniel Burbank and Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin back to Earth after nearly six months aboard the ISS.<br/> <br />Shkaplerov, the first to be pulled from the capsule resting on its side on the steppe, smiled and waved as support personnel sat him in a chair and wrapped a blue blanket over his legs, despite temperatures over 70 F (21 C).<br/> <br />Ivanishin followed with a broad grin and then Burbank, who chuckled as he answered questions from medical personnel.<br/> <br />Their trip to the station in November was the first since the U.S. space agency NASA ended its 30-year shuttle program, leaving the 16 nations investing in the $100-billion station to rely solely on Russia to ferry crews for the time being.<br/> <br />Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA's Don Pettit and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers remain aboard the ISS, where they arrived in December.
