Participants of the International Space Station’s Expedition 34 began their work on the station after their Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft docked with the ISS on Friday, December 21 night, RIA Novosti said.

Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, and US astronaut Thomas Marshburn entered the station after the hatches between the Soyuz spacecraft and the Rassvet module opened at 20:37 Moscow time (16:37 GMT) on Friday.

The Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan on Wednesday and spent two days in orbit before docking with the ISS.

The new crew will perform two spacewalks under the Russian and US space programs.

During their 147-day mission, the new ISS crew members will also take part in docking and unloading six spacecraft: four Russian Progress cargo spacecraft, Europe’s ATV-4 space freighter and US SpX-2 spacecraft.