Soyuz TM-31
Soyuz TM-31 was the first Soyuz spaceflight to dock with the International Space Station (ISS). The spacecraft carried the members of Expedition 1, the first long-duration ISS crew. It was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 07:52 UT on October 31, 2000 by a Soyuz-U rocket. The crew consisted of Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, and American William Shepherd. Gidzenko was Commander of the flight up, but once aboard the station, Shepherd became Commander of the long-duration mission Expedition 1. The spacecraft served as the crew's lifeboat while docked to the  ISS. The Expedition 1 crew were returned to Earth via a Space Shuttle during STS-102 in March 2001, and the Soyuz TM-31 spacecraft stayed with the station for part of Expedition 2. In April 2001 another spacecraft, Soyuz TM-32, arrived at the station, and took over responsibilities as the station's lifeboat. The crew launched by Soyuz TM-32, which included the first paying space tourist Dennis Tito, were returned to Earth in May aboard Soyuz TM-31. The visiting mission of which Tito was a part is sometimes referred to as ISS EP-1. Mission highlights. The Soyuz carried a crew of  three to dock it with the Zvezda module of the International Space Station (ISS) at about 09:21 UT on November 2. The Progress M1-3 cargo craft that was docked with Zvezda was released to make way for the Soyuz. The crew of two Russian and one American spent over three months on the ISS, and returned to Earth in an American shuttle (STS-102) in February 2001. In the initial days, the crew brought a variety of life support systems on-line, and created a laptop computer network that helped run all systems in the ISS. The remaining months were  allotted for exercise and space endurance practice. The crew was the group to launch the "permanent inhabitation" of the ISS. Since their launch, ISS and space are permanently occupied. The International Space Station only has funding through 2025 and is set to de-orbit sometime in 2028.