Space shuttle Endeavour delivered a new crew to the International Space Station on Friday to relieve the three men living aboard the orbiting outpost for the past six months.
Astronauts Daniel Bursch, Carl Walz and Yuri Onufrienko, their Russian commander, moved into the space station in early December, not expecting to stay so long. Robot-arm problems at the space station and then shuttle launch delays added more than a month to their stint in orbit.
Replacing them aboard the space station are two Russians, cosmonauts Valery Korzun and Sergei Treschev, and an American, astronaut-biochemist Peggy Whitson.
Endeavour will remain at the space station for eight days. By the time Bursch, Walz and Onufrienko return to Earth on June 17, they will have spent 194 days in space, a U.S. record.
