Live coverage: International Space Station crew lands in Kazakhstan

On its first launch of the year, a Russian-made Proton rocket lifted off Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with a French-built, Russian-owned communications satellite.

Remarkable video shot near Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, shows the Soyuz capsule descending under parachute for an on-target landing. The touchdown safely capped the three-man Expedition 50 crew’s 173-day mission to the International Space Station.

A Soyuz rocket with a three-person crew heading for the International Space Station lifted off at 1357 GMT (9:57 a.m. EDT) Wednesday in the final launch currently scheduled from Gagarin’s Start, a historic site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan from where Yuri Gagarin departed on the first human spaceflight in 1961. Beginning next year, Soyuz crews will blast off from a different pad at Baikonur.