Canadian billionaire returns to earth after space tour (Roundup)

Oct 11, 2009, 9:52 GMT

   Moscow - Canadian circus billionaire Guy Laliberte returned safely to earth on Sunday on board a Russian Soyuz capsule after a 12-day trip in space for which he had paid some 35 million dollars.

   Russian space officials said the Soyuz landed the steppes of Kazakhstan as planned, returning Laliberte, 50, along with Russian cosmonaut Gennadi Padalka and US astronaut Michael Barrett.

   The latter two men were returning to earth after 198 days in space on board the International Space Station ISS.

   'The landing went according to plan,' a space centre official in Moscow said, according to Interfax. 'The condition of the astronauts is normal. Helicopters and search teams are now on their way to the landing site.'

   Laliberte, head of the famous Cirque du Soleil circus, famously wore a clown's red nose on his space journey. He was the seventh space tourist, according to Russian space officials.

The Canadian space tourist had blasted off on September 30 from the Baikonur space centre along with US astronaut Jeffrey Williams and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev.

In a further development Sunday, Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne assumed command of the ISS, becoming the first West European in that role, the Russian agency Novosti reported.

The 48-year-old De Winne succeeds Padalka as commander of the ISS. Till now, the ISS command post had been held either by US or Russian nationals.

De Winne, who became an astronaut for the Cologne, Germany-based European Space Agency (ESA) in 2000, is due to leave the ISS on December 1, with US astronaut Williams slated to succeed him.

The current ISS crew, besides De Winne, Surayev and Williams, includes Roman Romanenko (Russia), Robert Thirsk (Canada) and Nicole Stott (US).