A soyuz capsule bringing back three astronauts from the International Space Station, including the first to represent the British government, made a safe parachute landing on the steppe near the Kazakh city of Zhezkazgan. The crew, which included a Russian and an American as well as Britain’s Tim Peake, left the space station about three hours earlier after spending half a year in Earth’s orbit.

The capsule landed on its side, a frequent occurrence in the windy steppe area, after parachuting for 14 minutes. A search and recovery team quickly extracted the trio from the capsule.

Former army major Peake, who turned 44 aboard the station, was on a mission for the European Space Agency (ESA) and became the first astronaut wearing a Union Jack flag on his arm. The first Briton in space was Helen Sharman, who traveled on a Soviet spacecraft for eight days in 1991.

Peake’s mission, called Principia after Isaac Newton’s seminal work, included a number of scientific experiments, such as testing the use of nitric oxide gas as a tool to monitor lung inflammation. During his 186-day stint in space, Peake ran a marathon strapped to a treadmill and held a science lesson for 300,000 schoolchildren.