VIDEO: Expedition 42-43 mission preview

A three-member space crew returned to Earth just after sunrise Thursday in Kazakhstan, descending through a sun-splashed sky under an orange and white parachute before dipping through fog for a rocket-cushioned touchdown on the snowy steppes of Central Asia.

Russia’s Progress M-26M cargo carrier lifted off Tuesday aboard a Soyuz rocket, climbed through clouds and into orbit, then executed an on-time radar-guided docking with the International Space Station six hours later. See photos of the supply ship’s launch.

NASA space station managers decided Thursday to delay the first two of three planned spacewalks by one day to give flight controllers and engineers a chance to catch their collective breath after exhaustive troubleshooting to verify the health of critical internal spacesuit components.