A Soyuz spacecraft carrying a three-man international crew docked at the International Space Station early Sunday, two days after its launch, Russia's mission control said.
It said the docking operation was done on schedule at 0219 GMT and the crew — Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, John Phillips of the United States and Italian Roberto Vittori — afterwards opened the hatch and entered the space station.
The Soyuz TMA-6 blasted off Friday from the Russian space base at Baikonur in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.
Krikalev, who is to be the commander of the new ISS team, and Phillips, the expedition's flight engineer, are scheduled to remain at the space station for almost six months.
Vittori is to return to Kazakhstan on April 24 along with the current ISS crew, Russia's Salizhan Sharipov and American Leroy Chiao, who arrived at the space station in October.
During his 10-day mission, Vittori is carry out experiments in the fields of human physiology, biology, technology and education.
Over the next six months, the crew are to receive the American space shuttle Discovery, which is due to blast off between May 15 and June 3 after a two-year break in operations that followed the disaster that killed seven astronauts on the shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003.
Russia plans 10-year space program
