Soyuz, station crews join on orbital outpost

The woman destined to be the International Space Station's first female commander entered the U.S. Destiny laboratory today ready to tackle an intense expansion project aimed at opening European and Japanese laboratories at the outpost.

U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, who will take the helm of the station from current commander Fyodor Yurchikhin on Oct. 19, smiled wide and waved as she floated into the Zarya module on the Russian side of the station and then made her way into the Destiny lab.














U.S. station flight engineer Clay Anderson greeted her and the rest of the joined crews gathered for a congratulatory call from officials at the Russian Mission Control Center outside Moscow.

"It's great to see you guys on orbit. Have some fun and do great work," NASA space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier said.

"You can count on it," Whitson replied.














Shiekh Muszaphar Shukor, the first Malaysian to fly in space, was in good spirits and appears happy and healthy. His father called up to the station to check on the orthopedic doctor, who is flying under a $25 million commercial deal between the Malaysian government and the Russian Federal Space Agency.

"I feel very well, and I have lots of Russian and American friends onboard," he said.

Shukor will spend the next nine days working on science experiments and photographing the Earth from an orbital perch 220 miles above the planet. He will return to Earth Oct. 21 with Yurchikhin and flight engineer Oleg Kotov, who have been living and working on the station since April.

Whitson and Malenchenko oversee the delivery and installation of the U.S. Harmony module, the European Columbus laboratory, a two-armed Canadian robot and the first section of the Japanese Kibo science research facility. The two will return to Earth next spring.

NOTE ON IMAGES: Click to enlarge the NASA TV screen grabs. The first shows the International Space Station as seen from the Russian Soyuz space taxi that docked at the outpost at 10:50 a.m. today. The next shows Peggy Whitson as she floated into the U.S. Destiny laboratory at the International Space Station. The last shows the joined crews of the Soyuz space taxi and the station. In the front row, from left to right, are Shiekh Muszaphar Shukor, Yuri Malenchenko and Peggy Whitson. In the back row, left to right, are flight engineer Oleg Kotov, current outpost commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and U.S. flight engineer Clay Anderson. Anderson will return to Earth aboard shuttle Discovery in early November.