EDIT CONTAINS 4:3 MATERIAL<br/> <br />A Russian Soyuz capsule landed on the Kazakh steppe on Monday (September 17), delivering a trio of astronauts from a four-month stint on the International Space Station.<br/> <br />The capsule, carrying U.S. astronaut Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin, parachuted through a cloudless sky and touched down in a cloud of dust at 8:53 local time (0253 GMT).<br/> <br />The crew returned after spending 123 days in orbit aboard the International Space Station, a $100 billion research complex involving 15 countries and orbiting 240 miles (385 km) above Earth.<br/> <br />The mission was shorter than the usual six months after launch delays caused by a problem with the initial Soyuz spacecraft.<br/> <br />Moscow hopes Monday's smooth landing will help to ease concerns over relying solely on Russia to service the space station following a string of recent mishaps in its space p<br/> <br />programme.<br/> <br />Padalka conducted a six-hour spacewalk on Aug. 20 to relocate a crane, launch a small science satellite and install micrometeoroid shields on the space station's Zvezda command module.<br/> <br />Three other International Space Station crew members - veteran Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide - remain in orbit.<br/> <br />They are scheduled to be joined by another trio - Kevin Ford, Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin - due to blast off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan next month.<br/> <br />Since the retirement of the space shuttles last year, the United States is dependent on Russia to fly astronauts to the International Space Station, which costs the nation $60 million per person.
