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Soyuz capsule docks at international orbiting station

A photograph of a video screen in a control center shows Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes, second left, holding a Brazilian flag as he stands with Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, left, ISS Commander Bill McArthur, center, US astronaut Jeffrey Williams, second right, and Russian flight engineer Valery Tokarev. PHOTO: AP

A Soyuz capsule docked with the international space station yesterday, bringing Brazil's first astronaut, a new Russian-American crew and a fresh load of supplies, equipment and experiments.

Two days after blasting off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the TMA-8 capsule arrived at the orbiting station and latched on just after 8:19am, guided into place automatically by computers on the capsule and on the station.

Dozens of Brazilian, US and Russian officials fell into hushed silence at Russia's Mission Control Center in Korolyov, outside Moscow, as the capsule neared the station, then broke into applause when contact was made.

"Well, gentlemen, I congratulate you," a Mission Control announcer said.

"This is the international space station. The train does not go any further, please leave the cars," he said, imitating the announcement made at the end of each line on the Moscow subway system.

Cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and astronaut Jeffrey Williams, who will replace the current crew for six months on the orbiting station, were joined on the trip by Brazil's first man in space, Marcos Pontes, who will return to Earth next Sunday.

About one-and-a-half hours after the docking, the air locks were opened and Williams, Vinogradov and Pontes floated into the station, greeted with handshakes and hugs by the crew's outgoing inhabitants -- Valery Tokarev and American Bill McArthur.

"You didn't happen to leave anyone behind?" joked Russian space agency official, Alexei Krasnov after making telephone contact with all five men and pointing out that the arrival fell on April 1 -- April Fool's Day.

Pontes quickly unfurled a Brazilian flag and smiled as he floated into the station's main compartment.

"Until the very moment that he returns to Earth, the hearts of all Brazilians will be following him," said Raimondo Mussi, a Brazilian space agency official who monitored the docking at Mission Control Center.

"A Brazilian astronaut in space contains a piece of every Brazilian on Earth," he said.

"I think it's safe now to call him a cosmonaut," Nikolai Sevastyanov, the head of the state-controlled RKK Energiya company that built Soyuz craft, said of Pontes.

Crew commander Vinogradov has said they plan to carry out at least one space walk and more than 65 scientific experiments during the mission, including some to test human reaction to prolonged space travel.

"I was shaking," said Kleber Paiva, a graduate student at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, which had two experiments that Pontes was to conduct during his nine days aboard the ISS.

"I'm so proud to be a part of this group, to be working with these people," Paiva said.

Vinogradov and Williams are to be joined later by European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter of Germany, when the space shuttle Discovery visits the space station in July. Once Reiter arrives, the station's long-duration crew will be three in number for the first time since May 2003, following the Columbia shuttle disaster that February.

The US space program has depended on the Russians for cargo and astronaut delivery to the space station since the Columbia explosion. The shuttle Discovery visited the station in July but had problems with the foam insulation on its external fuel tank.
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