A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts has docked with the International Space Station two days after blasting off from Kazakhstan.
The spaceship with NASA's Shane Kimbrough and Russians Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko on board completed the docking manoeuvre on Friday morning.
The trio has joined three other ISS crew members - Kate Rubins of NASA, Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency - who have manned the station since July and are due to return to Earth on October 29.
Kimbrough, Ryzhikov and Borisenko's Expedition 49-50 mission will last until February.
The next Soyuz mission is set to blast off to the station, which orbits about 400 km above Earth, on November 16.
NASA hopes to resume flying station crew members from the United States in 2018 aboard capsules under development by Boeing Co and privately owned Space Exploration Technologies or SpaceX.
