A Soyuz capsule
carrying Major Peake and two other crew members touched down in Kazakhstan at
10:15 BST.
Maj Peake
is the first person to fly to space under the UK
banner since Helen Sharman in 1991 and made the first spacewalk by a UK astronaut.
During the
186-day mission mission, Maj Peake also remotely steered a robot on Earth and
ran the London Marathon.
His mission
has taken him on about 3,000 orbits of Earth, covering a distance of about 125
million km.
Asked how
he felt after landing, Maj Peake said: "Truly elated, the smells of Earth
are just so strong, just so good to be back on Earth. I'll look forward to
seeing the family."
The
spacecraft turned over several times after it landed relatively hard due to the
wind speed on the Kazakh steppe. An official from Russia 's Yuri Gagarin training
centre said this was why they looked "a little green" after coming
out of the capsule.
"It is
going to be quite tricky for me to adapt. It's probably going to take me two or
three days before I feel well," Maj Peake said in his last news conference
before the return.
"It
will take me several months before my body fully recovers in terms of bone
density. And it will be interesting to see any lasting changes to eyesight etc.
"But
generally speaking in two or three days I should be fairly comfortable back on
Earth."
In 2009,
Maj Peake was chosen from a pool of 8,000 applicants to join the European Space
Agency (Esa) astronaut training programme, along with five other recruits.
"He's
done an amazing job," said the agency's director of human spaceflight, Dr
David Parker. "He's exceeded all expectations, certainly in terms of the
impact that he's had back in the UK ."
On Friday,
Colonel Tim Kopra handed over command of the ISS to his Nasa colleague Jeff
Williams.
At about
03:35 BST on Saturday, Maj Peake, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Col
Kopra made their farewells and entered the Russian Soyuz TMA-19M space capsule
to return home from the International Space Station.
After
undocking at 06:53 BST, the Soyuz performed two separation burns to distance
the spacecraft from the orbiting outpost.
The vehicle
then fired its engines again at 09:22 for a duration of four-and-a-half minutes
to begin the re-entry through the atmosphere.
Screaming
towards Earth at 25 times the speed of sound, the Soyuz was enveloped in a
fiery ball of superheated plasma. During this phase, the crew members inside
can be subjected to forces of about 5Gs - a level at which some people pass
out.
As it
neared the ground, the capsule deployed its parachutes to slow the descent,
firing engines to cushion its landing on the steppe, near the Kazakh city of
Dzhezkazgan at 10:15 BST.
After
medical checks, Maj Peake will be flown from Karagandy airport on a Nasa
gulfstream jet to Norway ,
and then on to Cologne , Germany , where
the European Astronaut Centre is based.
Dr Simon
Evetts, from the UK 's
Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, said: "During re-entry, Tim will
undergo significant strain on his body and will also feel the effects of his
landmark mission for weeks to come.
"Upon
arrival, Tim will feel weaker due to muscle loss and reduced cardiovascular
fitness, and will feel heavy in Earth's gravity."
Source: BBC
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