Cosmonauts Sergei Zaliotin and Alexander Kalery landed aboard their Soyuz TM-30 capsule near the town of Arkalyk in the central Asian nation of Kazakhstan.

Dropping to Earth under a giant parachute, the re-entry module bounced several times before settling down at 0044 GMT.

Kalery told AFP it was "the most difficult" landing of his three space missions so far.

The capsule "bounced up and down a few times on the ground like a rubber ball," he said.

The two cosmonauts were said to be in "very good" health after receiving medical checks.

They were transported by helicopter to the Kazakhstan town of Astana where they gave a news conference before flying on to Moscow.

Zaliotin told journalists in Astana that the Mir space station was "in very good condition" and that the pair had "succeeded in the most important objective of finding and plugging the air leak" which was discovered aboard the space station last spring.

Prior to the mission, the air leak had been slowly reducing the pressure inside Mir.

The cosmonauts switched Mir to automatic pilot before leaving on Thursday.

Their expedition, the 28th aboard Mir, could be the last as the private company, MirCorp, which runs the space station, has not found the finance needed to ensure its survival.

Russia might be obliged to destroy the veteran orbiter in October, if no cash is found.

But Kalery told the news conference that "everything was in good working order" on Mir and that it would be a mistake to shut the space station down.

Mir, which has been in orbit around the earth for 14 years, could last another two or three years if funding is found, according to experts.

Last month MirCorp signed a protocol with a private Italian company, Itali-Mir, which committed itself to finding 20 million dollars (21 million euros) to fly an Italian to Mir.

A first tranche of one million dollars was to have been provided by mid-June, but the cash has still not been released, according to sources.

The world's first commercial mission to renovate a manned space station and open it for commercial operations ended successfully today with the soft landing of two Russian cosmonauts in Kazakhstan.

Mission commander Sergei Zalyotin and flight engineer Alexander Kalery emerged from their Soyuz TM-30 transport spacecraft after touching down on the Kazakh steppe at 00:44 GMT.

Their recovery by a specialized ground crew marked the end to a long-duration flight sponsored by MirCorp that revived the station, making it ready for follow-on commercial missions.

"Working in partnership with our Russian colleagues, we have demonstrated the viability of MirCorp's business model," MirCorp President Jeffrey Manber said. "We are excited about the commercial prospects for this extremely capable space station."

Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria, one of MirCorp's major investors, declared the station ready for long-term operation as a commercial space platform. "The successful conclusion of this flight is one of MirCorp's most significant milestones to date," he said. "The cosmonauts confirmed that Mir is in good working order, and they demonstrated the value of Mir to the world's business community. We now are preparing the groundwork for upcoming missions to the station."