Russian, American, Japanese Astronauts Board Space Station

MOSCOW (AP) — Three astronauts from the United States, Russia and Japan boarded the International Space Station on Saturday after a two-day journey aboard a Russian Soyuz space capsule.

LIVE NOW: 3 crew set to arrive at @Space_Station tonight. Docking at 12:12am ET. Watch: https://t.co/KX5g7yYnYG pic.twitter.com/MsOM82ZD0T

— NASA (@NASA) July 9, 2016

The capsule docked smoothly with the space station at 0406 GMT (12:06 a.m. EDT) Saturday at a height of 412 kilometers (254 miles) above the Earth. Russia's space agency Roscosmos said the crew entered the station about two hours later.

#AstroKate Rubins comes through the hatch at 2:53am ET to begin her stay living & working on @Space_Station pic.twitter.com/ZeE7m0pF0q

— NASA (@NASA) July 9, 2016

Russian Anatoly Ivanishin, NASA's Kathleen Rubins and Takuya Onishi of the Japanese space agency JAXA are beginning a four-month stay on the orbiting space laboratory. They joined American Jeff Williams and Russians Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin, who have been aboard since mid-March.

There are now 6 humans living & working on @Space_Station! Learn more: https://t.co/FRrjhINIvY pic.twitter.com/KfMqA9t8N5

— NASA (@NASA)

July 9, 2016

The capsule blasted off from Russia's manned space complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on Thursday.