Brazil's Marcos Ponce Carries Flag, Soccer Jersey Onto Station

Two days after blasting off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome, the Soyuz TMA-8 capsule carrying cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, astronaut Jeffrey Williams and Brazil's first voyager into space, Marcos Pontes, docked with the International Space Station at 11:19 pm EST Friday.

"Well, gentlemen, I congratulate you," a Mission Control announcer said, before adding a bit of whimsy. "This is the international space station. The train does not go any further, please leave the cars."

The Associated Press reports that mimicked an announcement made on Moscow subway trains.

Ninety minutes after docking, the airlocks between the capsule and the ISS were opened, and the arriving crew was greeted with hugs and handshakes by the station's current inhabitants, Valey Tokarev and Bill McArthur. Ponce unfurled a Brazilian flag as he floated into the station's main compartment.

Ponces also has with him a Brazilian soccer jersey, which he hopes will bring his hometeam luck at this summer's World Cup in Germany.

While there is much work to be done over the next eight days, before the Expedition 12 crew undocks from the ISS for the trip home, the mood was light during the initial greetings.

"You didn't happen to leave anyone behind?" asked Russian space agency official Alexei Krasnov during his first phone call with all five men, as well as noting the crew's arrival coincided with April Fool's Day in Russia.

Expedition 13 did, in fact, leave the third member of its team on Earth -- but that situation should be remedied in July, when the space shuttle Discovery delivers European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter of Germany to the station. Reiter's arrival will mark the first time the ISS has had a three-man crew in over three years.

FMI: www.nasa.gov