The Russian Soyuz TMA-17 rocket, which took off Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome at 4:52 p. m. EST on December 20, has reached the new three-member crew at the International Space Station (ISS).

The new crew members who were launched into space by the Soyuz capsule included - Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov of Russia; the Expedition 22 NASA Flight Engineer Timothy J. Creamer of the US; and Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi of Japan. They are likely to remain aboard the station until May.

The three new members have strengthened the two-man skeleton crew, comprising current station commander Jeff Williams of NASA and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev. Williams and Suraev have been at the station since October this year, and have been keeping the outpost operational since December 1.

Shortly after the new crew docked into the space station, Williams radio to them: "Welcome to station guys, your home for six months."

During the six-month period aboard the space station, the three new crew members will serve on the Expedition 22 and Expedition 23 missions. In January, Kotov and Suraev will be donning pressurized spacesuits to perform a spacewalk, or EVA (extravehicular activity) to undertake the installation of the new Poisk module that reached the station in November.

Furthermore, Kotov, Creamer and Noguchi will also supervise the concluding assembly stage of the $100-billion ISS - a 16-nation project that has been under erection in orbit for over ten years.