The Russian Soyuz rocket launched on time this morning at 6:22 AM PDT, carrying the new Expedition 16 crew toward the International Space Station. Now in orbit aboard the Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft are Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson, flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko and Malaysian astronaut Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor. They'll dock with the space station on Friday.

The International Space Station has been continuously inhabited since November 2, 2000 when the first group of three astronauts, William Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev became the station’s first inhabitants.

The current inhabitants of the space station, the Expedition 15 crew has been busy readying the station as they prepare to greet their replacements and Malaysian guest. Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov set up a work space in the Zvezda service module that will allow the visiting Shukor to perform several experiments over nine days. Flight Engineer Clay Anderson also resized U.S. spacesuits for Whitson and Malenchenko for an upcoming spacewalk.

Yurchikhin and Kotov are scheduled to leave the station on Oct. 21, officially ending the Expedition 15 mission. The Malaysian astronaut Shukor will go home with the two cosmonauts. Anderson will remain onboard with Expedition 16 and return to Earth aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on its STS-120 mission which is scheduled to launch on October 23.