Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian to command the International Space Station, touched down safely in Kazakhstan with two fellow astronauts after a 3½-hour voyage home.

Laura Kane for The Toronto Star
Ottawa, 14 May: After nearly five months in orbit, during which he tweeted, sang and strummed his way into Canadians’ hearts, astronaut Chris Hadfield returned to Earth Monday.
Commander Hadfield touched down in Kazakhstan at 10:31 p.m. EDT, along with American Tom Marshburn and Russian Roman Romanenko. The trio had undocked from the International Space Station and boarded a Soyuz spacecraft just after 7 p.m.
Romanenko led the 3½-hour voyage home. By about 9:30 p.m., the Soyuz was 12 kilometres from the station and two braking rockets were deployed to slow down the capsule, allowing gravity to take hold.
Then, just after 10 p.m., the spacecraft automatically split into three pieces. The orbital and propulsion modules separated and burned up, leaving only the centre module, containing the three astronauts, to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. As the trio hurtled toward Earth at 230 metres per second, three parachutes deployed at about 10:20 p.m. and gradually slowed the spacecraft, before it landed softly on its side on the flat steppes of south-central Kazakhstan.
Russian, NASA and Canadian Space Agency officials were waiting to pull out the three astronauts and give them a preliminary medical checkup. Hadfield gave a thumb’s-up shortly after he was pulled from the capsule.
Following medical testing, the astronauts were flown to a Kazakhstan air base. Hadfield and Marshburn were later scheduled to board a jet for Houston, where Hadfield’s wife will be waiting.
The first Canadian to command the International Space Station, Hadfield, 53, captivated people across the globe through his Twitter account, on which he posted stunning photos of his views from space and answered questions from curious followers.
In a farewell video posted Sunday night, he thanked all who had followed his journey. “Who’d have thought that five months away from the planet would make you feel closer to people?” he mused.
Hadfield has been credited with reviving public interest in the Canadian space program, which faced budget cuts last year and saw its president resign in February. It will now be at least three years before the next Canadian astronaut visits the space station.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement that Hadfield had done an “absolutely remarkable job” as commander of the space station.
“The tireless and unique efforts by Mr. Hadfield to educate Canada and the world about the final frontier ... are nothing short of inspirational and have helped rekindle the dreams and excitement of becoming an astronaut,” he said.