A Soyuz space capsule carrying astronauts from Russia, Japan and the United States has docked with the International Space Station after a two-day voyage.

The docking took place smoothly early on Saturday at a height of 254 miles above the Earth. The crew will enter the space laboratory after the lengthy procedure to open the hatches connecting the space station and the capsule.

The capsule is carrying Russian commander Anatoly Ivanishin, Nasa's Kathleen Rubins and Takuya Onishi of the Japanese space agency JAXA.

They will join American Jeff Williams and Russians Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin.

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

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.