Video: Soyuz MS-01 leaves the space station for landing

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 day-and-a-half after launching from Virginia aboard an Antares rocket, a Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply ship loaded with nearly 7,600 pounds of experiments and provisions arrived at the International Space Station on Friday. Astronaut Anne McClain captured the Cygnus spacecraft with the space station’s Canadian-built robotic arm at 5:28 a.m. EDT (0928 GMT).

A small spacecraft built for the Russian military lifted off Thursday on top of a modified Soyuz booster, beginning a mission to reportedly test a compact Earth-imaging platform that could be used on future spy satellites.