Gallery: Three ISS Residents Parachute to Sunrise Landing in Kazakhstan

Three International Space Station residents parachuted to a safe landing Wednesday in a picturesque morning scenery in the steppe of Kazakhstan where their Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft touched down after circling the Earth 2,752 times.

Still strapped into the confined space of the Soyuz Entry Module, crewmates Alexey Ovchinin, Oleg Skripochka and Jeff Williams enjoyed a breath of fresh air for the first time in 172 days when recovery crews opened up the hatch to the spacecraft. The Russian-American crew was greeted by a beautiful late summer morning with clear skies and warm temperatures in south central Kazakhstan where the crew’s five-and-a-half month journey to space found its successful conclusion in a bulls-eye landing aboard the Russian workhorse spacecraft.

>>Read our Recap of the Soyuz TMA-20M Landing

All Photos below: Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center

All Photos below: NASA/Bill Ingalls