A veteran cosmonaut, a NASA astronaut and an Italian guest researcher completed a two-day orbital journey on Saturday when their Soyuz spacecraft gently slipped into a docking port at the International Space Station. ?The new residents have arrived at the International Space Station, setting the stage for the shuttle?s return to flight,? said NASA spokesman Rob Navias from the Russian mission control room, located outside of Moscow.

NASA hopes the space station will play host to the Discovery next month when shuttle flights are planned to resume after the Columbia disintegrated on re-entry over Texas two years ago, killing all seven crew. Russian commander Sergei Krikalev, US flight engineer John Phillips and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori arrived at the space station at 10:20 p.m. EDT as it flew over Central Asia. The crew blasted off in a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday.

Krikalev and Phillips are to spend six months on the station, replacing American Leroy Chiao and Russian Salizhan Sharipov, who have been on board since October. Italian astronaut Vittori, 40, will spend a week in orbit and return home with Chiao and Sharipov next week.

The new station crew is scheduled to receive the shuttle Discovery astronauts next month, in what NASA hopes will be its first mission since the February 1, 2003, Columbia accident. Krikalev and Phillips plan to participate in extensive inspections and photo documentation of the shuttle.

The shuttle will be delivering food, water, supplies and a replacement gyroscope, which is used to help position the station. Krikalev, 46, is a veteran of three long-duration spaceflights and two shuttle missions. Phillips, 54, has made one previous spaceflight aboard the shuttle.

<B>Irene KLOTZ</B>