Three astronauts from the triumvirate of the world's leading space agencies - NASA, Russia's Roscosmos and the European Space Agency - have arrived at the International Space Station.
Russian mission control confirmed the arrival, the Russian news agency TASS reported late on Saturday.
Astronauts Peggy Whitson of NASA, Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Frenchman Thomas Pesquet of ESA set off on Thursday in a Russian-designed Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan.
They are to spend six months aboard the space station.
Whitson, who has spent hundreds of days in space, more than any other female NASA astronaut, will command the space station. Whitson previously commanded the station in 2007.
The astronauts will contribute to hundreds of scientific experiments to advance humankind's knowledge of biology and physical sciences under the extraordinary, microgravity conditions presented by the orbiting spaceship.
