Space lovers have been celebrating a big homecoming event as NASA astronaut Scott Kelly landed on ground after completing 340-day mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Kelly touched down in Kazakhstan with his Russian counterparts.

Riding inside the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft, Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov landed in the Kazakhstan desert Tuesday night. Before leaving the ISS, the 52-year-old NASA astronaut handed over command of the space station to fellow astronaut Tim Kopra.

Last year, the US space agency kicked off its own astronaut twin experiment. Kelly was launched to the habitable artificial satellite hovering 400 kilometers over the earth in a region called low Earth orbit. The astronaut had to spend almost one year aboard the ISS while his identical twin, astronaut Mark Kelly, participated in the experiment from earth.

Now, Expedition 47 commander Timothy Kopra, British astronaut Timothy Peake and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko are aboard the space station. Three fresh crew members will arrive at the ISS later this month.

“We wanted to say goodbye and thank you. I am bringing home today two wonderful crew members, Scott and Mikhail, so thank you so much to everyone for your support”, announced Soyuz TMA-18M Sergey Volkov commander before undocking.

Cosmonaut Malenchenko praised the ISS crew members who left the space station. He also wished good luck to Kelly.

As the crew members have already landed in Kazakhstan desert, they will now undergo some tests which will tell how their body reacts after a long duration space mission. The three astronauts will be taken to Dzhezkazgan. After that, Volkov and Kornienko will visit Star City near Moscow for some more tests. Scott Kelly will go to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.