Brazil's first man in space lands back on Earth

Brazil’s first man in space landed back on Earth in the freezing Kazakh steppe today after a nine-day visit to the international space station.

The TMA-7 capsule carrying Marcos Pontes as well as American Bill McArthur and Russian Valery Tokarev, who had spent six months on the space station, touched down on target and on schedule at 03:47 Moscow time (11.47pm last night Irish time).