Posted: Tue, Oct 23, 2001, 12:38 PM ET (1638 GMT)
A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russian cosmonauts and one French astronaut docked with the International Space Station Tuesday morning. The Soyuz TM-33 spacecraft docked at the nadir port on the Zarya module of ISS at 6:44 am EDT (1044 GMT); hatches between the Soyuz and station opened about 90 minutes later. The TM-33 crew of Victor Afanasyev, Konstantin Kozeev, and Claudie Haignere will spend a week on the station before departing on the older Soyuz TM-32 spacecraft docked to ISS on the evening of October 30. Haignere, an ESA astronaut representing the French space agency CNES, will spend her time on ISS conducting a number of experiments in materials research, life sciences, and meteorology. "Taxi" flights such as this one are required twice a year to swap out the Soyuz spacecraft that serve as the station's lifeboat, as the Soyuz capsules are rated for only 180 days in space.

Related Links:

•  NASA ISS status report #01-40
•  Spaceflight Now ISS mission status center
•  SPACE.com article