Three International Space Station crew members are on their way back to Earth after undocking from the orbiting laboratory early on Monday, set to parachute to a late afternoon landing in Kazakhstan to close out a mission of 173 days.

A three-man crew from Russia and the United States is set to return from a 173-day mission aboard the International Space Station on Monday, aiming for a parachute-assisted landing in the Kazakh steppe aboard their Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft.

Soyuz MS-02 pulled into its orbital port on Friday, safely bringing three crew members to the International Space Station for a stay of four-and-a-half months as part of the 50th ISS Expedition.

The launch of the next crew flying to the International Space Station is facing a multi-week delay after a fault was discovered in their Soyuz spacecraft in the late stages of testing at the Baikonur Cosmodrome from where the three-man crew was to launch later this week.