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The Russian Soyuz capsule carrying a crew of three has landed. The space craft brought back to Earth the U.S. billionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi.
According to data from the Russian Mission Control, the Soyuz capsule touched down at 11:15 a.m. (0715 GMT, 3:15 a.m. EDT) Wednesday. The landing in Kazakhstan took place several hours after the Soyuz undocked from the International Space Station.
The other two members of the Soyuz crew are Russian Yuri Lonchakov and American Michael Fincke. The capsule landed north-east of the Kazakh industrial city of Dzhezkazgan.
"Everything went according to plan, everything is fine," said Valery Lyndin, a spokesman for Russia's mission control, Reuters reported. About 200 rescue workers and support teams, 12 helicopters, three aircraft and four rescue and evacuation vehicles were sent at the scene where the Soyuz landed.
According to a NASA report on this subject, the crew was in "good spirits" as the Soyuz TMA-13 craft landed. Charles Simonyi is a software developer who is at his second trip to space. He is a Hungarian-born, Bellevue businessman and former Microsoft executive. He paid $35 million for this trip, $10 million more than the previous space trip undertaken two years ago.
Simonyi, the first space tourist who visited the International Space Station, spent two weeks and conducted experiments. Aboard the Soyuz there was also American astronaut, Michael Barratt, who joined the ISS crew and will spend the next six months there.
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