The arrival of the Russian Soyuz capsule temporarily doubled the crew size. The newcomers were greeted with hugs and handshakes from the current crew.
NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin will stay until March, and the old crew is scheduled to return to Earth next week.
American Michael Fossum, Russian Sergey Volkov and Japanese Satoshi Furukawa have been at the station since June.
Burbank, 50, will take over command of the space station. He is a veteran of 12-day shuttle missions in 2000 and 2006.
Burbank, Shkaplerov and Ivanishin are to remain aboard the space station until March.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
