Woman takes command of ISS after crew return

MOSCOW (AFP) - A woman took command of the International Space Station (ISS) for only the second time on Monday as three of her United States (US) and Russian colleagues made a safe return from the orbiting space lab to the Kazakh steppe.

The Soyuz TMA-04M capsule made a pin-point landing with US astronaut Joe Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin aboard a vessel whose origins stretch back to the early days of Soviet space flight.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) television footage showed the smiling men relaxing in lounge chairs and sipping warm drinks from thermoses while medical teams checked their pulses and chatted to them about their trip.

"It's good to be home," a Nasa official quoted Mr Acaba as saying the moment he was pulled out of the Russian capsule to mark the formal end of his 125-day stay in space.