The Soyuz TMA-10M crew, relaxing shortly after returning to Earth from the International Space Station; left to right: flight engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy, commander Oleg Kotov and NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins NASA TV

Despite strained relations over Russian actions in Ukraine, superpower cooperation in space continued unabated Monday with two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut departing the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz ferry craft and plunging to a landing in snowy Kazakhstan to close out a 166-day mission.

Landing in arctic conditions, with low clouds, snow and temperatures near zero degrees Fahrenheit, the Soyuz TMA-10M crew module settled to a jarring parachute-and-rocket-assisted touchdown at 11:24 p.m. EDT (9:24 a.m. Tuesday local time).

Earlier in the day, the weather prompted concern the crew's return might be delayed. Russian recovery forces deployed in a fleet of MI-8 helicopters were unable to initially reach the landing site because of rotor icing and had to return to a staging area in nearby Karaganda.

But mission managers ultimately decided to press ahead, and Soyuz commander Oleg Kotov, flight engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy and NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins were cleared to proceed with the entry, undocking from the International Space Station's upper Poisk module at 8:02 p.m.

"Bye, bye, station," one of the crew members radioed on the translated space-to-ground audio loop.

After moving a safe distance away from the space station, Kotov, strapped into the craft's center seat, monitored a four-minute-50-second rocket firing starting at 10:30 p.m. to slow the spacecraft by about 286 mph. That was just enough to lower the far side of the orbit into the atmosphere for a steep plunge to Kazakhstan.

"Everything is fine on board. Pressure is stable, everything is (normal)," a crew member radioed.

Moments before falling into the discernible atmosphere at an altitude of 87 miles, the three modules making up the TMA-10M spacecraft split apart, and the central 6,400-pound crew module positioned itself with its heat shield forward to endure the extreme temperatures of atmospheric entry.

The entry appeared to go smoothly, and the spacecraft's main parachute unfurled at an altitude of about 6-and-a-half miles, slowing the craft to about 16 mph for the final stages of the descent. Because of cloud cover, the landing was not seen in real-time video, but Russian flight controllers in radio contact with the spacecraft said the crew was in good condition.

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3 space station crew members back on Earth