Houston / Moscow -- NASA astronaut T.J. Creamer, Russian cosmonaut

Oleg Kotov and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut

Soichi Noguchi, launched aboard a Soyuz spacecraft to the

International Space Station on Sunday, are onboard of the ISS. 

The Soyuz rocket docket Tuesday December 22.

Liftoff of the Soyuz occurred from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The three Soyuz crew members joined the Expedition 22 crew members

Jeff Williams, a NASA astronaut and the station commander,

and Max Suraev, a Russian cosmonaut and station flight engineer,

aboard the orbiting laboratory. The crew will now spend six months

in orbit. The station's five residents have some busy months ahead.

Kotov and Suraev will conduct a planned spacewalk in January.

Less than a week later, Williams and Suraev will fly the Soyuz

spacecraft that brought them to the station from its current

location on the end of the outpost's Zvezda service module to the

new Poisk module. In February, the crew will welcome a Progress

unmanned resupply ship and space shuttle Endeavour's STS-130

mission.

Endeavour and its crew will deliver the new Tranquility node and its

cupola, one of the last major portions of the station to be

installed.

Sources: NASA, JAXA, ROSCOSMOS.