Russian rocket docks at space station with fresh crew

aeb92445-Kazakhstan Russia Space Station

Dec. 19, 2012: U.S. astronaut Thomas Marshburn, right, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, center, and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, crew members of the mission to the International Space Station, ISS, walk to a bus from a hotel prior the launch of Soyuz-FG rocket at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

Dec. 19, 2012: The Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz TMA-07M space ship blasts off from the Baikonur cosmodrome Wednesday. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

SPACE – Three new astronauts arrived at the International Space Station Wednesday morning, NASA announced, carried into space aboard a Soyuz TMA-07M.

Flight Engineers Tom Marshburn, Roman Romanenko and Chris Hadfield completed their two-day journey to the orbiting outpost by docking to the Rassvet module at 9:09 a.m. EST, NASA announced Friday. The new trio will join Commander Kevin Ford and Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin who’ve been residing at the orbital laboratory since Oct. 26.

On Twitter, other astronauts celebrated the successful voyage to the orbiting station.

The station population will double with the hatch opening and welcome ceremony beginning at 11:15 a.m.

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After docking, the astronauts will perform leak checks on the seal between their Soyuz TMA-07M capsule and the space station's docking port on the Rassvet module. These checks should take about two hours, clearing the way for the hatches between the two vehicles to be opened, Space.com reported.