Russia has sent its first woman cosmonaut into the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday.
Elena Serova of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), along with her country-mate Alexander Samokutyaev and Barry "Butch" Wilmore of US space agency NASA joined the Expedition 41 crew in the early hours of Friday.
The Soyuz capsule carrying them docked with the space station about six hours after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The hatches between the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft and the International Space Station opened at 1:06 a.m. EDT.
The arrival of Wilmore, Samokutyaev and Serova increases the station's crew strength to six.
Expedition 41 Commander Max Suraev of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineers Reid Wiseman of NASA and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency, who arrived at the station in May, welcomed the new crew members aboard their orbital home.
Suraev, Wiseman and Gerst will return home in November. At that time, Wilmore will become commander of the station for Expedition 42. Wilmore, Samokutyaev and Serova will return to Earth in March 2015.
Serova is a 38-year-old engineer who has spent seven years training for her first mission as a cosmonaut. Russia has so far sent three females to space, including Valentina Tereshkova, who in 1963 became the first woman on earth to enter space.
Russia is sending a woman to the space after a gap of 17 years, and Serova is the first Russian woman to live in the ISS.
Wilmore is starting his second visit to the space station. He piloted space shuttle Atlantis in November 2009.
Samokutyaev is beginning his second stint at the ISS orbital laboratory, having served as an Expedition 23/24 Flight Engineer in 2010.
The crew members will be conducting hundreds of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations during their six-month sojourn on the orbiting laboratory. This research includes seedling growth, observation of meteors entering Earth's atmosphere and studies of animal biology and bone and muscle physiology.
They will also study about crew member characteristics, such as day-to-day changes in health or incidence of pain or pressure in microgravity.
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