Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Misurkin and two Japanese space tourists have returned to Earth after spending 12 days on the International Space Station (ISS).
Russia's space agency announced their landing in Kazakhstan on December 20 in a statement on its website.
"The flight of the 'tourist' spacecraft 'Soyuz MS-20' has been completed," Roskosmos said.
NASA also announced that the trio had landed in Kazakhstan.
Misurkin, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, and his video producer, Yozo Hirano, had earlier bid farewell to the crew of the ISS and closed the hatch on the Soyuz MS-20 in preparation for their departure from the ISS.
Misurkin, online fashion tycoon Maezawa, and Hirano blasted into space on December 8 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They were the first self-paying tourists to visit the ISS since 2009 and the first private Japanese citizens to visit space since journalist Toyohiro Akiyama traveled to the Mir space station in 1990.
Maezawa and Hirano documented their daily life aboard the ISS for Maezawa's YouTube channel. Their videos showed them performing mundane tasks in space, including brushing their teeth and drinking tea. One video explained how astronauts use the bathroom.
Their trip was one of several milestones this year for private space travel. Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson all made breakthrough commercial tourism flights in 2021.
Misurkin, a cosmonaut who spent six months on the ISS in 2017-18, traveled to space this time as a reporter for the Russian state news agency TASS. Misurkin was to report on the life and work of the station, and his reports, photos, and videos were to be available on the TASS website, the news agency said.