Soyuz capsule carrying 3 crew land safely in Kazakhstan

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U.S. astronaut Richard Arnold, gestures while smiling shortly after the landing of the Russian Soyuz MS-08 space capsule about 150 km (80 miles) south-east of the Kazakh town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Oct. 4, 2018 . A Russian space capsule with three men onboard has safely landed in a barren steppe in Kazakhstan after a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station. (Maxim Shipenkov/Pool Photo via AP)

A Russian space capsule with three men onboard has safely landed in a barren steppe in Kazakhstan after a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station.

The Soyuz MS-08 carrying Russia's Oleg Artemyev and NASA's Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold touched down at 5.44 p.m. Kazakh time (1144 GMT).

The two Americans ventured outside the space station for three space walks to carry out maintenance during their 197-day stay at the orbiting lab. Artemyev conducted one spacewalk together with a fellow Russian.

A NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut are due to launch next week to join three astronauts who remain in the orbit.