Russian spacecraft arrives at ISS

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two cosmonauts and an American astronaut docked Saturday at the international space station, where another Russian-US team has spent six months.

The Soyuz TMA-5, carrying Russians Salizhan Sharipov and Yuri Shargin and American Leroy Chiao, docked with the station at 4.16 Irish time, just over 49 hours after lifting off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday.

It is the fourth time a Soyuz has filled in for US space shuttle flights, suspended since the Columbia burned up on re-entry in February 2003.