Related stories: Russian spaceship starts trip home
                  US millionaire ready for space tour

    MOSCOW, Oct. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- A Russian spaceship carrying the world's third space tourist and an outgoing two-man crew of the International Space Station (ISS) landed successfully Tuesday morning in Kazakhstan, bringing the trio back to Earth after their sojourn on the orbiting laboratory.

    Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, US astronaut John Phillips and space traveler Gregory Olsen touched down in a Soyuz capsule at 05:09 Moscow time (0109 GMT) in the designated area 57 km northeast of the town of Arkalyk on the barren steppes of Kazakhstan, the Mission Control outside Moscow said.

In this image taken from video, cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev (L) waves just before closing the hatch aboard the space capsule Soyuz, as US scientist Greg Olsen looks on Oct. 10.  (AP Photo/NASA TV)

    The crewmen reported they are feeling well.

    Search planes and helicopters scrambled to reach the spacecraft, which began a three and a half hour return flight from the orbit 400 km above Earth.

    Live signals from the Mission Control showed Olsen smiling, eating an apple and drinking water as ground personnel helped him out of the capsule and settled him into a chair and covered him with an blanket to stave off the morning chill on the windswept steppes.

    After landing, the crewmen will go through medical checks and then be taken back to Moscow for further examinations.

    Krikalev, Phillips and Olsen entered the Soyuz three hours before their scheduled flight back to Earth, donned spacesuits in the cramped quarters of the descent craft before finally receiving the go-ahead to hurtle back home.

    "We're done with our tasks on the expedition," Krikalev said as the trio moved into the Soyuz capsule.

    Krikalev and Phillips, having logged 179 days in orbit, left behind Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev and NASA astronaut William McArthur, who reached the station on Oct. 3 and will be busy keeping the station ticking over for the next six months.

    The new crew will conduct two spacewalks and an array of scientific experiments, medical tests and routine maintenance during their mission aboard the station.

    Krikalev, Phillips and Olsen soared into the sky on Oct. 1 on aSoyuz ship from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and hurtled two days in space before the rendezvous with the ISS.

    Olsen, rich enough to afford a 20-million-US-dollar ticket to ride aloft on a Soyuz, was preceded by American Dennis Tito and South African Mark Shuttleworth, who paid the same amount for their respective trips in 2001 and 2002.

    Russia's space program has been the ISS' lifeline for more than two years, ferrying crews and cargo since the US shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it returned to Earth in 2003. All seven astronauts aboard Columbia perished.

    The US shuttle Discovery briefly visited the station in July but concerns over the foam insulation on the shuttle's external fuel tank prompted NASA to keep the shuttle fleet grounded. Enditem