Live coverage: Japanese cargo craft departs International Space Station

Bidding their crewmates farewell, a Russian cosmonaut and two NASA astronauts boarded their Soyuz ferry craft, undocked from the International Space Station and fell back to Earth Tuesday, landing safely on the snowy steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 168-day mission.

Russia says a design bug from the pairing of a Progress spacecraft with an upgraded version of the venerable Soyuz launcher led to the loss of a resupply mission bound for the International Space Station on April 28.

Russia’s Progress supply ship got an upgrade with a successful cargo launch to the International Space Station on Monday to kick off a two-day flight to the complex with more than 2.8 tons of equipment, propellant and water.