Updated

A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts has undocked from the International Space Station and is headed for earth.

The capsule separated from the orbiting space lab at 2:36 a.m. Wednesday (2236 GMT Tuesday) as the station was about 260 miles (418 kilometers) above Earth. It is to land on the steppes of Kazakhstan about three hours later.

The astronauts returning after 188 days aboard the space station are Japan's Koichi Wakata, Russian Mikhail Tyrin and NASA's Rick Mastracchio.

Video feed sent by NASA reported no problems with the undocking.

Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and American Steve Swanson remain on the ISS.