A US software billionaire who won a junior cosmonaut contest as a child in Communist-ruled Hungary returned from a dream voyage to the international space station today, riding a Russian capsule to a soft landing on the Kazakh steppe along with a Russian and an American who spent seven months in orbit.

American astronaut Edward Lu and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko were due to reach the international space station today to relieve the three crew members on board.