Japanese space tourists return to Earth after 12 days on ISS

A Japanese billionaire returned to Earth Monday, after 12 days spent on the International Space Station where he made videos about performing mundane tasks in space including brushing teeth and going to the bathroom. 

Online fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano parachuted onto Kazakhstan's steppe at around the expected landing time of 0313 GMT Monday, along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin. 

Footage from the landing site, around 150 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of the central Kazakhstan town of Zhezkazgan, showed the trio smiling after being helped out of the Soyuz descent module and into evacuation vehicles in freezing, foggy conditions.

"The crew is feeling good," a commentator on NASA TV said, translating comments from Russian mission control.

Russia's defense ministry had said on Sunday that Maezawa and Hirano were set to be surprised by recovery crews with a traditional Japanese noodle dish.

Their journey marked Russia's return to space tourism after a decade-long pause that saw the rise of competition from the United States.  

The trio spent 12 days in the orbiting laboratory where the Japanese tourists documented their daily life aboard the ISS for Maezawa's popular YouTube channel.

Addressing his one million followers on YouTube, the 46-year-old billionaire explained how to brush teeth and go to the bathroom in space.

In one of the videos, he explained in detail the business of relieving oneself on the ISS.

"Peeing is very easy," he said as he demonstrated a handheld funnel astronauts use to suck their urine away.