Video: US-Russian crew return safely to earth in Soyuz spacecraft "I feel great," said Padalka, wrapped in a blue blanket, sipping hot tea and smiling, enjoying the balmy steppe air under the early morning sunlight as medical personnel wiped sweat from his brow. "This was my fourth flight, and so it is nothing of the extraordinary already," he said, looking relaxed. During his stay at the orbital station, Padalka conducted a six-hour spacewalk on August 20 to relocate a crane, launch a small science satellite and install micrometeoroid shields on the space station's Zvezda command module. The crew returned after spending 123 days in orbit aboard the International Space Station (ISS), a $100 billion research complex involving 15 countries and orbiting 240 miles above Earth. Three other ISS crew members - veteran Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, Nasa astronaut Sunita Williams and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide - remain in orbit.