The International Space Station’s new crew arrived on Friday aboard a Russian Soyuz spaceship (Reuters, BBC, TASS). Along with cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko was the woman who will be the station’s first female commander, Peggy Whitson. Also aboard was Muszaphar Shukor from Malaysia, whose flight generated the much discussed guidelines for Muslims in space.

Perhaps unfairly, Reuters refers to Shukor as a tourist – his flight was part of a jet fighter deal between Malaysia and Russia. However Malaysia’s prime minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the science experiments Shukor was to undertake were key. “I wanted to ask him if he had started the experiments. He is not in space to enjoy the view of Earth below but has duties to fulfil while at the International Space Station,” Abdullah said (Malaysia’s New Straits Times).

Already aboard the station are Fyodor Yurchikhin, Oleg Kotov and Clayton Anderson. “The fun is just about to begin,” Yurchikhin said upon the new crew’s arrival (AP). As Space.com notes both Whitson and Malenchenko have spent some days aboard the ISS in the past. “When you are so familiar with the layout of the station, you know what is kept where and so it feels like you are at home when everything around you is so familiar,” Malenchenko said.

Image: NASA