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| Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft blasts through the atmosphere after launching on time. [PHOTO: NASA Television] |
Houston: NASA astronaut Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts Evgeny
Tarelkin and Oleg Novitskiy launched aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket on their
mission to the International Space Station at 5:51 a.m. CDT Tuesday (4:51 p.m.
Kazakhstan time). The trio lifted off from Site 31 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome
in Kazakhstan. This is the first time in 28 years the pad has been used for
human spaceflight.
Ford, Tarelkin and Novitskiy will spend the next two days
inside their Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft as they close in on the space station.
Novitskiy is serving as the commander of the Soyuz and will be at the controls
as the spacecraft docks with the Poisk module of the station Thursday.
The
three will join Expedition 33 Commander Sunita Williams of NASA and Flight
Engineers Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Yuri
Malenchenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency, who have been living aboard
the orbiting laboratory since July.
Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin will remain aboard the station
until March 2013. Williams, Malenchenko and Hoshide will return to Earth Nov.
19. When Williams, Malenchenko and Hoshide undock from the station, it will
signal the end of Expedition 33 and the beginning of Expedition 34 with Ford as
commander.