Astronaut Trio Returns From Space Station After Months In Orbit

Three astronauts including one American returned safely from the International Space Station early Friday after a 250-mile descent back to Earth.The Soyuz capsule carrying the three flight engineers — NASA's Kjell Lindgren, Russia's Oleg Kononenko and Japan's Kimiya Yui — undocked from the ISS just before 5 a.m. ET, according to NASA.

They landed as expected in Kazakhstan, south of Russia, after a return journey of more than three hours.Lindgren and Yui had both spent four and a half months in space, while Kononenko had been in orbit for almost a year and a half.

NASA's Commander Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov, will remain aboard the ISS until they are joined in four days by three new arrivals: NASA's Tim Kopra, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Tim Peake of the European Space Agency.

The ISS travels at a speed of 18,000 mph (five miles every second) and orbits the Earth every 90 minutes. More than 200 people from 15 countries have visited the station since 2000.