Spacecraft docks at orbiting Space Station
In this photo taken with a fisheye lens and with long time exposure the Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz TMA-10M space ship carrying a new crew to the International Space Station, ISS, blasts off at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013, with turning antennas on the foreground. The Russian rocket carries U.S. astronaut Michael Hopkins, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
U.S. astronaut Michael Hopkins, center, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov, bottom, and Sergey Ryazanskiy, above, crew members of the mission to the International Space Station, ISS, gesture prior the launch of Soyuz-FG rocket at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, Pool)
U.S. astronaut Michael Hopkins, crew member of the mission to the International Space Station, ISS, gestures prior the launch of Soyuz-FG rocket at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, Pool)
U.S. astronaut Michael Hopkins, crew member of the mission to the International Space Station, ISS, gestures prior the launch of Soyuz-FG rocket at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, Pool)
The Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz TMA-10M space ship carrying a new crew to the International Space Station, ISS, blasts off at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013. The Russian rocket carries U.S. astronaut Michael Hopkins, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
The Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz TMA-10M space ship carrying a new crew to the International Space Station, ISS, blasts off at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013. The Russian rocket carries U.S. astronaut Michael Hopkins, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
MOSCOW >> A Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts successfully docked with the International Space Station early Thursday, bringing the size of the crew at the orbiting outpost to six.
Michael Hopkins of the United States and Russians Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky traveled six hours in the capsule before linking up with the space station’s Russian Poisk research module at 06.45 a.m. Moscow time (0245GMT).
The new crew, which blasted off from the Russian-leased Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan late last night, are joining cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, NASA’s Karen Nyberg and Italy’s Luca Parmitano who has been on the station since May and will be returning to Earth in November.
The incoming crew’s six-month mission will include a spacewalk with the Olympic torch.
Kotov and Ryazansky will have the honor of taking the Olympic torch into open space in November as part of the relay of the Olympic flame ahead of the Winter Games being held in Russia’s Sochi in February. The torch will not be lit however, because of safety concerns and will only arrive at the station in November with the next crew.
