MOSCOW (AFP) -- A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying the world's first woman space tourist and the two crew members of the 13th International Space Station mission landed in the steppes of Kazakhstan, the control centre said.

The capsule carrying Iranian-born American national Anousheh Ansari, Pavel Vinogradov of Russia and U.S. astronaut Jeffrey Williams touched down softly at 0114 GMT north of Arkalyk, Russian news agencies quoted the Russian space flight control centre as saying.

It had cast off automatically from the ISS at 2153 GMT Thursday.

"Everything went off as planned, the vessel landed on its side," a centre spokesman said, adding that helicopters and planes of the space service had spotted the capsule while it was still in the sky.

Space service agents helped the cosmonauts out of the capsule and wrapped them in furs to protect them from the cold.

Vinogradov and Williams, who had spent 183 days in the ISS, and Ansari "are in good health," ITAR-TASS quoted a Russian spokesman as saying. They were put in special chairs to help them recover from weightlessness.

After being examined by a medical team the trio were being taken by helicopter to nearby Kustani from where they were to fly to Moscow for rehabilitation.

Ansari, 40, paid $20 million to spend a week on board the ISS where she carried out medical and biological experiments for the European Space Agency (ESA).

The American woman lived in Iran until the age of 16, and is only the fourth space tourist in history.

Ansari made millions in the telecom sector, and her family has gone on to invest in technology and space exploration, contributing 10 million dollars to the X Foundation, set up to encourage advances in human space flight.

She accompanied the 14th crew, NASA's Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russia's Mikhail Tyurin, to the ISS where the duo will stay till Spring 2007 accompanied by the ESA's Thomas Reiter of Germany who returns to Earth at the end of this year.