Russian Soyuz And New Crew Dock At International Space Station

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft with a fresh crew docked at the International Space Station tonight, marking the beginning of a six-month expedition aboard the outpost for a Russian cosmonaut and two American astronauts.

Fyodor Yurchikhin, Shannon Walker and Douglas Wheelock arrived at the space station at 6:21 p.m. EDT -- 2:21 a.m. Moscow time -- after a two-day trip from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The launch Tuesday was the 100th to be carried out in the assembly and maintenance of the station since the first two building blocks of the outpost were linked in late 1998.

Already onboard the station: Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko as well as American astronaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson. They arrived in April and will remain onboard through September.

Hatches between the Soyuz and the station are scheduled to swing open about 9:25 p.m. A welcome ceremony will follow.

You can watch live NASA TV coverage of the hatch-opening here in The Flame Trench beginning at 9 p.m. Click the NASA TV box on the right side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage.