Three crew members from the International Space Station made their way back to Earth on Friday, Dec. 11, after spending 141 days in space, landing safely in the former Soviet state Kazahkstan.

Members of the Expedition 45 team, which include flight engineers Kjell Lindgren of NASA, Oleg Kononenko of Roscosmos (Russian Federal Space Agency) and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) landed safely at 8:12 a.m. EST (7:12 p.m. Khazahk time) this morning nearby the Kazahk town of Dzhezkazgan.

The trio of flight engineers caught a ride home by way of the Russian spacecraft Soyuz, which has of now completed its sixth successful return mission. Recovery teams, which arrived via helicopter, are currently on standby near the site to assist the crew after they adjust back to the Earth's gravity. After their adjustment occurs, the astronauts will be escorted back to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, respectively.

According to NASA, the Expedition 45 flight crew circled Earth 2,256 times since they landed on ISS on July 23 of this year -- 59.6 million miles. The mission also marked Kononenko's third time in space, and a first for both Yui and Lindgren.

While aboard ISS, the astronauts orchestrated studies in biology and molecular science -- like, for instance, growing lettuce in space -- and also conducted physical studies. Their findings will be applied to future missions in space, especially those that pertain to deep space travel and planned Earth-independent trips to planets like Mars, which NASA hopes to accomplish by the year 2030.

Replacements for the returned crew -- astronauts Tim Kopra (NASA), Yuri Malenchenko (Roscosmos) and Tim Peake (European Space Agency) are scheduled to launch from Baikonur, Kazahkstan on Dec. 15.

Via: NASA