MOSCOW - A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts landed safely in the steppes of Kazakhstan on Tuesday, Russia's space agency said.

The capsule, carrying NASA astronaut Michael Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa of Japan's JAXA space agency, returned to earth at 8:25 am Kazakh time (0225 GMT) after undocking from the International Space Station (ISS) earlier in the day.

They had stayed 165 days in space.

NASA's Dan Burbank and Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin, who arrived at the station on Wednesday, will stay there till March.

The station will be back to its normal six-person crew after a launch in October.