After a descent from the international space station, the Soyuz TMA-12 capsule carrying a British-born space tourist Richard Garriott and two cosmonauts landed the earth safely at 0337GMT in north-central Kazakhstan.
Richard, acomputer game designer, conducted various scientific experiments during his 10-day stay on the orbiting station, for which he paid an estimated $30 million to the Russian government.
Search and recovery crews extracted Richard Garriott, Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko from the capsule.