The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Moscow

A Soyuz craft left its docking port at the international space station on Sunday, starting a return trip to Earth with two Russian cosmonauts and Malaysia's first space traveler aboard. The capsule was to bring back Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov after a six-month stint at the station, along with Malaysian Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, who arrived at the orbital outpost Oct. 12. The Soyuz briefly fired thrusters to distance itself from the station after leaving its berth on schedule at 3:14 EDT, said Valery Lyndin, spokesman for Russian Mission Control outside Moscow. It was scheduled to touch down about 50 miles north of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, about three hours later, Lyndin said. Weather on the Kazakh steppe was chilly and mostly clear, with some clouds expected to roll in before landing time. NASA television showed footage from the space station of the Soyuz, creeping along past the sunlit curve of the Earth.

Back aboard the station, the remaining crew - U.S. astronauts Peggy Whitson and Clayton Anderson, and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko - monitored the progress of the Soyuz on its return.

Whitson, the station's first female commander, arrived along with Sheikh Muszaphar and Malenchenko on another Soyuz that lifted off from the Russian-leased launch facility in Kazakhstan Oct. 10.