Three Russian cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station today.
The station's new Prichal module was docked with a Russian spaceship at 3:12 p.m. Both vehicles were flying over eastern Kazakhstan.
The rendezvous happened less than 3.5 hours after the launch.
The International Space Station is being built.
The station's hatch opened at 5:48 pm. The three cosmonauts will be able to meet their crewmates on the space station.
The last time an all-cosmonaut crew lifted off was in 2000 when Sergei Zalyotin and Aleksandr Kaleri flew the final mission to the Mir space station. Since then, astronauts have flown many missions, but until today they had always shared their space craft with a professional from another nation or a space tourist.
Artemyev, Matveev and Korsakov will stay at the station until September. cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov are joining seven other people on the space station.
Shkaplerov, Dubrov and Vande Hei will return to Earth on March 30. NASA officials said that the International Space Station operations are continuing as usual despite the increased tensions between Russia and the West.
Soon, the space station will get more visitors. Four private citizens will be sent to the space station by the April 3 launch of the Ax-1 mission. The Crew-4 mission for NASA is scheduled to launch on April 19.
The story was changed at 5:53 p.m. The news of hatch opening was reported on March 18.
Mike Wall is the author of Out There, a book about the search for alien life. You can follow him on social media. Follow us on social media.
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