Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko, together with spaceflight participant So-yeon Yi, have reached the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft. After the hatches opened at 11:40 a.m., the Expedition 17 crew members were welcomed by the Expedition 16 crew, led by commander Peggy Whitson. She and Russian flight engineer, Yuri Malenchenko, to return to Earth on April 19 on an older Soyuz craft, together with Yi.

All three crew members are at their first spaceflight, but everything went smoothly. Lt. Col. Sergey Volkov, the son of a famous cosmonaut, was selected for training as a test cosmonaut in 1997 and he has been training for missions to the International Space Station since 2000. He trained as the backup for Expedition 7 and 13.

He also trained for the primary crew of Expedition 11 until the station missions were reorganized following the Columbia accident. His father, 59-year-old cosmonaut Alexander Volkov, logged 391 days in space during one flight to the Salyut-7 space station and two flights to Mir in 1985, 1988 and 1991 respectively.

"Actually I expect it's going to be a very interesting but a hard time, really a hard time," said Volkov, who will soon take over as ISS commander. "I think one of the most exciting parts [is that] we are going to undock ATV (the Automated Transfer Vehicle Jules Verne), that I think the whole program has been waiting for a very long period of time," Volkov said in a preflight interview.

Volkov, Kononenko and Reisman will have about six weeks to make all the necessary preparations for the installation of a huge module of the new Japanese Kibo research laboratory that will be attached to the left side of the forward Harmony connecting module.

The first South Korean to fly in space and the youngest female astronaut, So-yeon Yi was selected as a candidate for the first South Korean space mission in 2006. Since that time she has worked as a research fellow in the Department of Korean Astronaut Mission Project of the Korean Aerospace Research Institute. In September 2007, Yi was assigned to train as a spaceflight participant. During her stay at ISS, So-yeon Yi intends to conduct 18 scientific experiments and has also pledged to cook a Korean meal there. On April 12, she will sing to mark Cosmonauts' Day.