The Soyuz, which began its return journey to Earth by separating from the International Space Station at 2149 GMT Monday, landed on the steppes of Kazakhstan in central Asia at 0109 GMT Tuesday, a spokesman for the centre said.

The third civilian in history to pay for a space flight, arranged by Space Adventures, the sole space travel agency in operation, traveled home with US astronaut John Phillips and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev.

"The three are well," the spokesman said after the safe landing.

Krikalev and Phillips had been aboard the ISS since April 17. They were replaced by American William MacArthur and Russian Valery Tokarev, who lifted off with their space tourist from Baikonur in Kazakhstan for the ISS space station October 1.

Olsen, 60, paid Space Adventures 20 million dollars (16.5 million euros) for a seat aboard the capsule and eight days of gazing down at the Earth from the ISS station, 230 miles (370 kilometers) up.

The space station is parked permanently in space and manned by a succession of teams relieving each other at regular intervals.

Olsen spent 1,500 hours preparing for his mission at a space base near Moscow and at Baikonur.

He was preceded into space by two other millionaire tourists, American Dennis Tito in 2001, followed by South African Mark Shuttleworth the following year.

During his eight-day journey aboard the ISS Olsen planned to test equipment developed by his company, a New Jersey-based firm that makes electronic sensors for military and civilian use.

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