Soyuz Spacecraft’s Cosmonauts ‘Float’ Into ISS: Mission Control Center

MISSION CONTROL CENTER (KOROLYOV), September 26 (RIA Novosti) – Russian cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev, Elena Serova and US astronaut Barry Wilmore "floated" into the International Space Station (ISS) when the hatches between the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft and the ISS opened, Mission Control Center reported Friday.

"The new arrivals were warmly welcomed by the ISS crew," the Mission Control Center told RIA Novosti.

The ISS crew also includes the Russian Federal Space Agency's Col. Maxim Surayev and flight engineers Reid Wiseman of NASA and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency. They arrived at the station in May.

The Soyuz spacecraft's port solar array deployed successfully. In was previously announced that there were some problems with one of the two arrays when the spacecraft reached its orbit. Both Roscosmos and NASA confirmed that there was no threat to the expeditions or to the cosmonauts' landing scheduled for March.