Expedition 37 Crew Members Return to Earth After 166 Days in Space [VIDEO]

After successfully spending 166 days in space, Expedition 37 crew members made a flawless landing in the steppe of Kazakhstan southeast of Dzhezkazgan at 9.29 p.m. Sunday.

Three expedition crew members landed safely on Earth after spending 166 days in space and completing a 70.3 million mile mission spanning more than 2,600 orbits of Earth since they were launched to the International Space Station in May 2013.

The Expedition 37 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano were carried back to Earth in the Soyuz TMA-09 M spacecraft. On landing at 8.49 a.m. Monday-Kazakh time, the crew were immediately assisted by a Russian recovery team and NASA personnel. Health assessments were also conducted on the crew members.

The spacecraft Soyuz TMA-09M was undocked from the Zvezda service module at 6.26 p.m. EST Sunday by Soyuz Commander Yurchikhin. The undocking took place 262 miles above northeast Mongolia.

The undocking marked the end of Expedition 37 and the start of Expedition 38 that is led by the command Oleg Kotov. The trio bought along with them the Olympic torch that will light the flame at the opening ceremony of the 2013 Winter Olympic Games that starts from Feb. 7 at Sochi, Russia.

With two missions, Nyberg a graduate from University of North Dakota, has logged 180 days in space out of which 13 were during the STS-124 mission conducted in 2008 aboard the space shuttle Discovery. With four missions namely, STS-112 in 2002, Expedition 15 in 2007 and Expedition 24/25 in 2010 Yurchikin has logged a total of 537 days in space. But Expedition 37 is the first mission for Parmitano and he logged 166 days in space.