( CNN ) -- A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two cosmonauts and an U.S. astronaut from the International Space Station landed successfully in Kazakhstan early Saturday morning , NASA said . The trio spent 176 days in space . Their return was delayed by a day after an undocking glitch , NASA said . They successfully undocked from the space station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft at 10:02 p.m . ET on Friday after engineers used jumper cables to resolve the problem , NASA said . Cmdr . Alexander Skvortsov and flight engineers Mikhail Kornienko and Tracy Caldwell Dyson touched down in Kazakhstan at 11:23 a.m. ( 1:23 a.m . ET ) , NASA said . NASA said their scheduled departure was delayed Thursday after the opening hooks and latches on a docking port would not release . To resolve the problem , flight engineer Fyodor Yurchikhin installed jumper cables to a failed sensor Friday , allowing the hooks to open . According to NASA , a Soyuz space capsule took the first crew to the orbiting laboratory in November 2000 . After the February 2003 Columbia accident , the Soyuz became the means of transportation for crew members going to or returning from the International Space Station . CNN 's Ninette Sosa contributed to this report .
NEW : The trio -- two Russians and one American -- returned to Earth early Saturday . They were the first crew of a Soyuz capsule since Russia launched its own manned space station in 2000. NASA says the delay happened after hooks and latches on the docking port did not release .