A Russian cosmonaut, a NASA astronaut and an Italian wrapping up her first space flight boarded a Russian Soyuz ferry craft early Thursday, undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth, landing safely on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out an extended 200-day mission.

Bidding farewell to the International Space Station today, the commercial Cygnus cargo ship separated to a safe distance before igniting an intentional fire in microgravity like never before, all in the name of science.

Astronauts will not fly to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship until at least May 2018, NASA said this week, missing a previous target launch date at the end of next year.