MOSCOW (AP) — A Soyuz capsule carrying a U.S.-Russian crew returning after spending nearly six months on the International Space Station landed safely on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

NASA said in a live TV broadcast that the capsule carrying American Mike Hopkins and Russians Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy touched down as scheduled southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan at 9:24 a.m. local time Tuesday (0324 GMT, 11:24 p.m. EDT Monday). They spent 166 days in orbit on the space station.