NASA?s Joseph Acaba, Two Russian Space Crew Land Safely In Kazakhstan

A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying U.S. astronaut Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin landed on the Kazakh steppe at 8:53 local time (0253 GMT) Monday.

The Expedition 32 crew, who arrived at the International Space Station May 17, returned to Earth after a four-month (123 days) stay there.

During their stay on the ISS, the trio orbited Earth 2,000 times and traveled 52,906,428 miles, according to NASA.

Padalka, who ranks fourth for the most days spent in space (a total of 711 days during four flights), piloted the craft back to Earth.

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide remain on the ISS. Williams took command of Expedition 33 after the Soyuz spacecraft separated from the space station.

The trio on the ISS would be joined by NASA's Kevin Ford and Russia's Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin in October.

Check out the pictures of the safe landing of the Expedition 32 crew.

The U.S. depends on Russia to send its astronauts to the ISS ever since NASA's shuttle program came to an end in July 2011. Russia charges NASA $60 million per astronaut.