Soyuz nears station

American astronaut Edward Lu and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko were due to reach the international space station today to relieve the three crew members on board.

Yesterday, Russian Mission Control said that all systems were operating normally and the two crew members were in good spirits, a day after the rocket blasted off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe.

The Soyuz TMA-2 capsule was due to dock with the £40bn (€57bn) orbiting station at about 7am Irish time today.

The station is currently home to US astronauts Kenneth Bowersox and Donald Pettit and cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin, who have been in space since November.