UPDATED 9:00 p.m. ET
Three International Space Station crewmembers -- including the world record holder for most cumulative time spent in space -- returned to Earth Friday evening.
Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov and the first Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen landed their Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft, undocked earlier from the Space Station, at 8:51 p.m. ET in in Kazakhstan.
Touchdown! Soyuz crew landed safely on Earth at 8:51pmET/00:51 UTC http://t.co/V3cHlJ0Eca #ISS pic.twitter.com/2XexbPW0ck— NASA (@NASA) September 12, 2015
The retro rockets on #Soyuz TMA-16M fire as it lands successfully in Kazakhstan. @Space_Station @NASA @jasonrdavis pic.twitter.com/bkn2mPQDqI— Xero Some (@xerosome) September 12, 2015
The Soyuz undocked from the station at 5:29 p.m. ET while both flew over Mongolia.
Padalka -- the record holder for most cumulative time in space -- has been on the ISS for about six months after arriving at the Space Station with Mikhail Kornienko and Scott Kelly, the two crewmembers participating in the first yearlong mission on the ISS.
"With landing, Padalka will have logged a record 879 days in space on five flights, more than two months longer than cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, the previous record holder," NASA said in a statement.
Farewell #brohug w my #Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka with whom I arrived at @space_station in March. #YearInSpace pic.twitter.com/zfoot8Sow0— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) September 11, 2015
Aimbetov and Mogensen have only been on the station for about eight days -- marking their first visits to orbit. Their short stay was designed to bring Russian cosmonaut Sergey Volkov up to the station and take Padalka home while leaving Kornienko and Kelly on the orbiting outpost to carry out the rest of their one-year mission.
Padalka's departure signals the halfway point of the one-year mission that should have Kelly and Kornienko staying in space until March 2016.
At the moment, Kornienko and Kelly are joined by NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Volkov.
The landing was streamed on NASA TV.
