CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Reliably and like clockwork, another Russian Soyuz spacecraft approaches to dock with the International Space Station in this view captured Oct. 20 by the Expedition Seven crew of Ed Lu and Yuri Malenchenko.

Inside the three-part spacecraft were the Expedition Eight crew of Mike Foale and Alexander Kaleri, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Pedro Duque, who was to spend a week aboard the outpost working on science experiments before returning to Earth with the Expedition Seven crew.

Known as the Soyuz TMA-3, this improved version of the same basic spacecraft has been in use by the Russians since the mid 1960s. The T model first carried cosmonauts in 1980, while the TM model was used beginning in 1986 to bring crews up to the Mir space station.

The Soyuz's three major sections include the orbital module, which is where the crew works in space and includes the docking hatch; the descent module, which is the middle section containing the heat shield where the crew rides during re-entry and landing; and the service module, which includes a pair of electricity-generating solar wings.

Credit: NASA