Manned spacecraft docks to the space station

MOSCOW — A spacecraft carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts on Wednesday successfully docked to the International Space Station.

The Soyuz TMA-22 with NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin onboard docked to the orbiting station several minutes ahead of schedule Wednesday morning Moscow time.

The three blasted off from the Russia-leased cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday.

The mission’s launch had been delayed for two months due to the crash of an unmanned Progress cargo ship in August. The failed launch raised doubts about future missions to the station, because the rocket that crashed ship used the same upper stage as the booster rockets carrying Soyuz ships to orbit. The delay cut the mission onboard to three people, American Micheal Fossum, Russian Sergey Volkov and Japanese Satoshi Furukawa, who have been onboard since June and are due to return to Earth next week.

William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, said in a televised news briefing shortly after the docking that “the Russian team did the tremendous job getting the launch and the docking ready.”