With French astronaut Claudie Haignere on board, Russian cosmonauts Victor Afanasyev and Konstantin Kozeev are scheduled to dock the Soyuz at the station at 6:41 a.m. EDT (1041 GMT) Tuesday.

Hatches between the craft are expected to swing open 90 minutes later as the two cosmonauts and their French colleague board the outpost for a weeklong stay with the current station crew: Frank Culbertson, Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Turin.

"This is the first time that they will have received visitors," said Rob Navias, a spokesman at NASAs Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Launched Sunday from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the so-called Soyuz Three crew since has carried out a series of four steering thruster firings designed to keep their craft on course for the station.

The prime goal of their 10-day mission: Delivering a fresh Soyuz lifeboat to the station and then returning to Earth at 10:52 p.m. EDT Oct. 30 (0252 GMT Oct. 31) in an identical craft that has been parked at the outpost since May.

Soyuz crew transport vehicles double as emergency lifeboats at the station. With an orbital design life of six months, the vehicles are replaced at the station twice each year by visiting Soyuz taxi crews.

Also on tap during the visit: A series of science experiments that will be carried out as part of a commercial deal between the French Space Agency CNES and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, also know as Rosaviakosmos.

Haignere, who is a 44-year-old rheumatologist and an expert in neuroscience, will conduct experiments in life sciences, biology, materials science and Earth observation.

A veteran of a 1996 mission to Russias former space station Mir and wife of French astronaut Jean-Pierre Haignere, she will be the first European woman to visit the station.

Her two crewmates, meanwhile, will prepare the older Soyuz at the station for its return to Earth and also take part in an orbital first: Shooting a television commercial for a Japanese firm.

Wielding a high-definition TV camera in the stations Russian-built crew quarters, Afanasyev and Kozeev will film themselves drinking a popular Japanese soft drink made by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co.

Officials with the Japanese advertising agency Dentsu Inc. said the filming will be "the first effort by Japan to shoot a TV commercial in space" and "the worlds first attempt to support a full-fledged commercial with high-vision shooting combined with real-time remote direction."

Dentsu advertising officials will link up with the cosmonaut film crew on space-to-ground radio channels, directing the camera work during the 50-minute shoot. The resulting commercial will air in Japan beginning in January.

The commercial work is not entirely unprecedented. A visiting Soyuz crew that included American millionaire Dennis Tito shot a TV commercial for Radio Shack in May and also carried out camera work for Pizza Hut, Popular Science and The LEGO Company.

And just last week, spacewalking cosmonauts Dezhurov and Turin placed a Kodak placard outside the station as part of a commercial deal with the American imaging company.

For the European Space Agency, the eight-day stay at the station is a prelude to a series of future astronaut flights to the station aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Italian astronaut Roberto Vittori will fly aboard a Soyuz taxi flight in April 2002 and Belgian colleague Frank De Winne will be a prime candidate for a mission in 2003. Both already have begun training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center outside Moscow.

Haignere, Afanasyev and Kozeev will be the first and only visitors at the station during the tenure of Culbertson and his two Russian cosmonaut colleagues, who were launched to the outpost in August aboard NASAs shuttle Discovery.

Now 73 days into a planned four-month research tour, the so-called Expedition Three crew is scheduled to return to Earth Dec. 10 aboard shuttle Endeavour.