The two-day odyssey from the warm Kazakhstan desert launch site to the cold vacuum of space finished today. The Soyuz rocket carrying Wisconsin astronaut Jeffrey Williams has docked with the International Space Station.

“We're here,” said Col. Jeffrey Williams. “We've arrived!”

A balcony full of Russian and American dignitaries applauded while the crew's families looked over the scene of celebration at Russian Mission Control.

It took two days for the Soyuz rocket with its crew of three to catch up to the International Space Station. It wasn't an easy journey. One veteran astronaut likens the Soyuz to three men crammed into the front seat of a Volkswagen Beetle without the legroom.

Two hours after docking and safety checks, a pressurized hatch opened and crews of both craft greeted each other. Than it was time for the families to radio greetings of their own from Mother Earth. That included Williams' wife Anna-Marie. She knows this is the end of the most treacherous leg of her husband's mission.

Now she’ll head home and wait 5 ½ months for his return. That, she says, is the hardest part.

This is Williams' third flight into Earth's orbit. He'll return in mid-March giving him more than a year as an astronaut. Since his grandson was born in August, that will make him the longest serving grandfather in space.