Live Coverage: The flight of British astronaut Tim Peake

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying Britain’s Tim Peake, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and NASA astronaut Tim Kopra, parachuted to the flat grasslands of Kazakhstan on Saturday, returning home from a six month mission to the International Space Station.

Britain’s first astronaut, Helen Sharman, received a congratulatory phone call from Tim Peake aboard the International Space Station during celebrations in London to mark the 25th anniversary of her historic mission to the Mir space station.

British astronaut Tim Peake, along with Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko and outgoing space station skipper Tim Kopra, departed the International Space Station today aboard the Soyuz TMA-19M capsule and landed safely in Kazakhstan at 1016 BST (0916 GMT).