Russian Soyuz craft docks with ISS

A Soyuz space craft carrying a Malaysian, a Russian and a US astronaut docked Friday with the International Space Station (ISS), an official at ground control outside Moscow said.

By Space Travel Editorial Team · Editorial process

Published October 11, 2007

A Soyuz space craft carrying a Malaysian, a Russian and a US astronaut docked Friday with the International Space Station (ISS), an official at ground control outside Moscow said.

"The Soyuz docked with the ISS (at 1450 GMT)," ground control spokesman Nikolai Kruchkov told AFP. The hatch connecting the Soyuz and ISS was to open at about 1630 GMT, allowing the three to enter the permanently inhabited international space platform.

The new arrivals at the ISS were Malaysia's first astronaut, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, Russian cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko and NASA's Peggy Whitson, who will be the first female commander of the station.

They blasted off Wednesday from the Baikonur launch centre that Russia runs in Kazakhstan.

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The Space Travel Editorial Team produces content across our two editorial pillars: space industry news and Mind & Meaning. We cover launches, missions, satellites, defense, and the technology of getting humans to space, alongside the psychology of ambition, isolation, and meaning under extremes. Articles reflect our team's collective editorial process, source verification, drafting, technical review, and editing, rather than a single writer's work. Space Travel takes editorial responsibility for content under this byline. For more on how we work, see our editorial policy.