ISS Expedition 38 Crew Members Land Safely in Kazakhstan

Expedition 38 crew members Michael Hopkins of NASA, and Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) returned to Earth Monday, NASA announced. Their Soyuz spacecraft landed in the snowy steppes of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at about 11:24 p.m. EDT.

The trio made 2,656 orbits around the planet during their 166-day stay at the International Space Station. Their total journey was 70.5 million miles.

Kotov and Ryazansky were part of the crew that took the unlit Olympic torch on a spacewalk in November ahead of the Sochi Olympics.

Hopkins and team had a rather frigid welcome. Temperatures at the landing site were near 0 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 18 degrees Celsius), space.com reported. Strong winds swept the snow-covered region.

"We have a landing!" read a huge TV screen at Russia's Mission Control outside Moscow as the capsule with the astronauts landed in Kazakhstan Monday, according to Reuters.

The three astronauts were seated in recliner chairs and wrapped in blue blankets to protect them from the freezing winds, Reuters reported.

The team didn't have a standard medical examination near the landing-site due to the extreme weather conditions. They were immediately taken to a helicopter, space.com reported.

The Expedition 38 crew conducted several experiments during their stay at the ISS. They conducted protein crystal growth studies and biological studies to understand how liquids behave in microgravity. Their research on health management is expected to help scientists learn more about the effects of long space voyages on human body, NASA said in a statement.

Kotov has now completed a total of 526 days in three space flights while both Hopkins and Ryazanskiy have 166 days each on their space-flight log.

Japan's Koichi Wakata is now the first Japanese national to command the ISS. He and his crew- Rick Mastracchio and Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos will manage the station until the arrival of three other astronauts. NASA astronaut Steve Swanson and Russian cosmonauts- Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev are expected to join Wakata and team by March 25 this year.