First Korean astronaut returns to Earth

South Korea's first astronaut returned to Earth on Saturday, touching down with two International Space Station crew members in a cramped Russian landing pod, space officials said.

The Soyuz craft landed slightly off its target in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan, but Korean scientist Yi So-Yeon and her two colleagues emerged unscathed, the officials said in a televised briefing.

"The landing was within the normal limits... all of the cosmonauts are well," said Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos.

The three crew members said they felt "wonderful," another official said.

Yi, whose mission was hailed as a landmark for the Korean space programme, was joined on the descent by Russian flight engineer Yury Malenchenko and US astronaut Peggy Whitson, who has now spent more time in space than any other American.

The three were plucked by Russian helicopters from the barren steppe of Kazakhstan, the centre of the Russian space programme since the Soviet era, Roskosmos head Perminov said.