A day after their historic launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, an American and two Russians hurtled through Earth orbit aboard a Soyuz spacecraft Wednesday, heading for an equally momentous docking at the station.

Coming almost 17 years after the United States set out to build it, NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts -- Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev -- are scheduled to arrive at the station early Thursday.

The vanguard crew then will cross over the threshold and take up residence at the outpost, opening up the possibility that men and women forevermore will live and work among the stars.

"I'll tell you, there will be a lot of wet eyes around America and Russia and the world when that happens," said NASA Administrator Dan Goldin.

Added NASA space flight chief Joe Rothenberg: "It's a moment we've all been waiting for."

The so-called Expedition One crew blasted off at 2:53 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (07:53 GMT) Tuesday -- a launch precisely timed to put their Soyuz space taxi on course for a two-day trip to the station.

With Gidzenko at the controls, the crew since then has carried out a series of engine firings aimed at closing a wide gap between the orbiting spacecraft.

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Close encounter

The final phase of the high-flying rendezvous will begin about 1:55 a.m. EST (06:55 GMT) Thursday with the Soyuz trailing the station by some 496 miles (800 kilometers). Another engine firing then will propel the crew to a point about 660 feet (200 meters) from the 13-story outpost.

This NASA artist's concept shows how the International Space Station will look when the Expedition One crew arrives to dock with the outpost early Thursday.

Now made up of three permanent wings, the station will be flying broadside to its direction of travel with its crew quarters -- a Russian command post dubbed Zvezda, or Star -- facing south.

Easing up to the station on the opposite side, Gidzenko will guide the Soyuz on a looping flyaround of the station, lining the spacecraft up with a circular docking port at the rear end of the bus-sized Zvezda module.

A slow final approach will begin at 4:15 a.m. EST (09:15 GMT) and docking is expected nine minutes later.

SPACE.com will carry a live NASA TV broadcast of the rendezvous and docking beginning at 3:45 a.m. EST (08:45 GMT).

Live news interviews, a post-docking press briefing and TV replays of the hatch opening at the station will be broadcast between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. EST (09:00 and 13:00 GMT).

Ground controllers in Moscow set the stage for the docking late Tuesday by jettisoning a trash-filled Russian space freighter from Zvezda's docking port, freeing it up for the arrival of the Expedition One crew.

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Trash day

Launched in August, the unmanned Progress cargo carrier ferried some 1,300 pounds (585 kilograms) of supplies and equipment up to the station for its first full-time tenants.

A U.S.-Russian moving crew unpacked the Progress and loaded it up with garbage during a September mission aboard shuttle Atlantis.

Operated by remote control, the cargo carrier pulled away from the station about 11:02 p.m. EST Tuesday (04:02 GMT Wednesday).

The view from a camera aboard Progress as the robot ship undocks with the station late Tuesday. Image from NASA TV.

Three hours later, ground controllers sent it on a destructive plunge back through the atmosphere above the South Pacific Ocean between the Fiji and Solomon islands.

The inaugural station crew, meanwhile, continued chasing down the station, lapping the planet once every 90 minutes. The trio also spent a good part of their day testing Soyuz systems that will play a crucial role the scheduled link-up with the station.

"We're having a pretty good day in orbit," Shepherd told engineers at the Russian Mission Control Center in Korolev, a town located outside Moscow. "We're getting a lot done and we're looking forward to a good docking tomorrow."

"So are we," European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang replied.

The docking and subsequent occupation of the station will mark a key milestone in the history of the project, which was first proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in his 1984 State of The Union address.

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What then was expected to be an $8 billion outpost now will cost at least $60 billion to build, and an original 1992 completion date now has been pushed back to April 2006 at the earliest.

Expedition One

Look here for the latest news about the first crew to live and work aboard the International Space Station.

Still, NASA officials are quick to note that the project -- which is widely considered the most complex international engineering endeavor of all time -- brings together space agencies from 16 nations on four continents and 100,000 workers worldwide.

Shepherd and his cosmonaut colleagues, they add, will be securing a firm orbital foothold for an estimated 45 crews that will live and work aboard the station over the next 15 years. And if all goes well, the crew also might be paving the way for human expeditions beyond Earth orbit.

"I think that without this first step -- there wouldn't be a next step. And I think it's going to be a turning point," Rothenberg said.

"It will change the course of history," added Tommy Holloway, manager of NASA's space station project office. "I think it will be a proud moment for thousands of people all over the world that have worked so hard to make it happen."