Space station welcomes Soyuz crew
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Nikolai Budarin, from left, Kenneth Bowersox, Donald Pettit, Edward Lu and Yuri Malenchenko on the international space station on Monday.
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A Russian Soyuz capsule successfully docked with the international space station to drop off an astronaut-cosmonaut team and supplies. CNN's Ratlisa Vassileva reports (April 28)
The astronauts flying to the ISS. CNN's Jill Dougherty reports.
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MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- The crew aboard a Russia spacecraft were welcomed aboard the international space station on Monday, following the first manned flight since the space shuttle Columbia disaster.
The docking of the Soyuz TMA-2 to the space station took place at 9:56 a.m. Moscow time (0556 GMT) over Kazakhstan, a former Soviet Central Asian republic. About 90 minutes afterwards, the U.S.-Russian crew already aboard the ISS opened the hatch and then Edward Lu, 39, of the United States, and Yuri Malenchenko, 41, of Russia squeezed through the opening and into the space station.
"Everything has lined itself up properly," a NASA commentator said before the docking over Kazakhstan. "Everything is continuing to go very smoothly."
The rocket with the capsule blasted off Saturday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The new crew members will spend six months in the space station, replacing astronauts Kenneth Bowersox and Donald Pettit and cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin.
That trio will return to Earth on May 3 aboard the Soyuz space vehicle now tethered to the station, which has been in operation with a crew since November 2, 2000, as its escape vehicle.
Budarin will celebrate his 50th birthday Tuesday, and Pettit had his 48th birthday on April 20. Lu and Malenchenko are expected to present birthday gifts to the two crew members at the beginning of six days of handover activities that begin later Monday, according to NASA.
NASA engineers were helping monitor the flight from the Russian Mission Control in Korolev, outside Moscow.
Malenchenko, left, and Lu will live on the space station until October.
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Lu and Malenchenko were supposed to fly the shuttle Atlantis to the space station in March, but NASA has grounded all shuttle flights until it can determine the cause of February's Columbia tragedy.
As a result, transport to and from the space station, including delivering provisions such as food and water, has to be carried out by Russian spaceships.
NASA and the Russian space agency decided on a two-man crew to conserve supplies such as food and water. Without a third man, the new crew will not be doing space walks, although if there is an emergency, they can still carry out that procedure.
Asked how he felt to be back on the international space station, The Associated Press quoted Malenchenko as saying: "It has become so big and beautiful. ... We are very glad to be here, very glad to see our friends. Thanks to everyone for the opportunities given to us."
Back on Earth, Lu's mother, Snowlily, was on hand for the docking at Mission Control outside Moscow. "I am just so happy and proud to see everything work out so well," she said.
