A Russian Soyuz craft returned to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) early Friday, bringing home the world's first female space tourist and two professional astronauts.

Iranian-born American Anousheh Ansari, Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and U.S. astronaut Jeffrey Williams landed safely at 5:14 a.m. Moscow time (0114 GMT) in northern Kazakhstan's barren steppes aboard the Soyuz TMA-8 capsule, the Mission Control outside Moscow said.

After exiting the capsule, the three were immediately covered in blankets and served hot tea to keep warm amid freezing temperatures at the landing site. They were due to be flown to Moscow later for medical checks. "All the three felt well," the Mission Control said.

"Anousheh is a brave, good guy," flight commander Pavel Vinogradov was quoted by the Itar-Tass new agency as saying upon returning to Earth.

Ansari smiled as she sat in a chair and was greeted with a bouquet of red roses and an apple, Itar-Tass said.

The capsule started the descent more than three hours before touchdown, after undocking from the ISS. At the landing site near the town of Arkalyk, search and rescue teams and helicopters were on call as the small capsule's engines fired a final braking burst to cushion the landing.

Ansari, 40, who runs a telecommunications company in Texas, conducted a series of blood and muscular experiments for the European Space Agency during her nine-day stay on the station.

Previous space tourists reportedly paid about 20 million U.S. dollars apiece for a ride aboard the Soyuz.

Vinogradov and Williams were working on the orbiting outpost since April. They have left behind Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, U.S. astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria and German astronaut Thomas Reiter on the ISS.

(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2006)