Astronauts take record-breaking six-hour express ride to space station

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RAW VIDEO: A crew of two Russians and one American arrives on the International Space Station. The incoming crew plans to spend five months on board.

A new Russian-American crew arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday after a fast-track trip from Earth of under six hours, the swiftest ever manned journey to the orbiting laboratory.

A NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts opened the hatches of their Soyuz-TMA spaceship and floated into the ISS to a warm welcome from the three incumbent crew, live pictures broadcast on Russian television showed.

Russia's Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin and American Chris Cassidy are now expected to spend the next five months aboard the station after their hitch-free launch and docking.

The International Space Station crew member US astronaut Chris Cassidy reacts after donning a space suit before the launch. Photo: Reuters

Their record-breaking trip from blast-off at Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to docking with the ISS lasted less than six hours, slashing the usual travel time by some 45 hours.

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Previously, trips to the ISS had taken over two full days as spaceships orbited the Earth 30 times before docking with the space station.

However, under a new technique now employed by the Russian space agency with the help of new technology, the Soyuz capsule this time only orbited Earth four times before docking.

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Astronauts take record-breaking six-hour express ride to space station