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

The Soyuz MS-07 spacecraft carrying U.S., Russian and Japanese space fliers returned to Earth on Sunday with a parachute-assisted, rocket-cushioned touchdown on the Kazakh steppe after 168 days in orbit.

A Russian Soyuz booster arrived at its launch pad Sunday in Kazakhstan for two days of final countdown preparations ahead of liftoff with a Russian cosmonaut and two U.S. astronauts Tuesday on the way to the International Space Station.

Russia sent a spy satellite into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket Feb. 2 from a snowy launch pad at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, setting off on a mission to detect, locate, and characterize foreign military radio signals.