A Soyuz spacecraft carrying a three-man international crew docked on the International Space Station at 6:20 a.m. Moscow time, Sunday.
The three cosmonauts who blasted off Friday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the Central Asian state of Kazakhstan - Russian Sergei Krikalev, American John Phillips and Italian Roberto Vittori from the European Space Agency - entered the station about three hours later and greeted Cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov and U.S. astronaut Leroy Chiao , who have operated the space station for the last six months. Russian space officials said the docking took place on schedule
"We are very happy to see the new crew arrive and we wish them an excellent mission," Sharipov said over a video linkup with Russian Mission Control in Korolyov, outside Moscow.
One of Krikalev and Phillips' key tasks during their six-month mission will be to observe the condition of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery when it arrives in the first shuttle launch since the Columbia shuttle disaster on Feb. 1, 2003. The two will conduct a photo survey of the Discovery's insulating tiles as the shuttle docks.
Fred Gregory, deputy administrator of NASA, said the resumption of US space shuttle flights was on schedule and the Discovery space shuttle is due to blast off between May 15 and June 3.
Cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov and U.S. astronaut Leroy Chiao , are scheduled to return to Earth on April 25, along with Roberto Vittori , who is representing the European Space Agency.
