With a US-Russian space team aboard a Soyuz YMA-18 spacecraft docking safely at the International Space Station (ISS) at 1:25 a. m. EDT on Easter Sunday, there are six members at the ISS now – one day ahead of the Discovery’s early Monday-scheduled launch to the orbiting lab.

The three-member Soyuz crew comprised two Russian cosmonauts - Soyuz captain Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko - and one American astronaut, Tracy Caldwell Dyson. They join their Expedition 23 crewmates – Commander Oleg Kotov of Russia, Soichi Noguchi of Japan, and NASA astronaut Timothy Creamer.

The Soyuz crew had launched early Friday – Good Friday - from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome; and, upon their arrival at the ISS on Easter, sent warm wishes to family members and friends celebrating the Christian holiday back home.

One of the first things that Skvortsov said after floating inside the station was: “We are under a great impression of this flight and we have a lot of emotions. And we would like to again say 'Happy Easter' to everybody. It's a wonderful holiday.”

The arrival of the Soyuz spacecraft at the ISS marks the beginning of a busy next week at the space station – with NASA’s Monday-launching Discovery space shuttle scheduled to dock at the ISS on Wednesday. With the addition of the seven crew-members aboard Discovery, the population of international astronauts at the ISS will go up to 13.