Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov (left), NASA astronaut Steve Swanson (centre) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev (right) say their final farewells before hatches between their Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft and the International Space Station are closed.
Just hours later they landed safely in Kazakhstan ending their 167-day stay in space as members of the ISS Expedition 39 and Expedition 40 crews.