Cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his associate Yozo Hirano left the Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft and stepped aboard the International Space Station.
The newcomers were met by Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Raja Chari, and European Space Agency’s Matthias Maurer.
The spacecraft, launched by the Soyuz-2.1a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 10:38 (Moscow time) Wednesday, approached the ISS via the four-orbit trajectory. The docking proceeded in automatic mode, TASS reported.
The mission will last for 12 days. Misurkin, Maezawa and Hirano will return to Earth early on December 20.
