Video: Change of command aboard International Space Station

Three space station residents crammed inside a capsule smaller than a compact car landed on the austere plans of Kazakhstan on Thursday, returning to Earth for their first taste of gravity and whiff of nature in nearly seven months.

A Russian cosmonaut, his Canadian co-pilot and a NASA flight engineer boarded their Soyuz spacecraft, undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth Monday evening, landing on the balmy steppe of Kazakhstan to close out an action-packed 204-day mission.

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.