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| A video grab from NASA Television showing launch of Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft |
Houston: With temperatures well below freezing at the Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Tom Marshburn of NASA, Roman Romanenko of the Russian
Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space
Agency launched Wednesday to the International Space Station at 6:12 a.m. CST
(6:12 p.m. Baikonur time).
The trio will dock
its Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft to the Rassvet module on the Russian segment of
the space station at 8:12 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 21. About three hours later,
hatches between the Soyuz and the orbiting laboratory will open. Marshburn,
Romanenko and Hadfield will be greeted by space station Expedition 34 Commander
Kevin Ford of NASA and Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin of
Roscosmos, who have been in orbit since late-October.
Marshburn, Romanenko
and Hadfield will remain aboard the station until May 2013. Ford, Novitskiy and
Tarelkin will return to Earth on March 15, when Hadfield will become the first
Canadian commander of the space station.
The focus of
Expedition 34 is scientific research, with the astronauts serving as subjects
for human physiology tests, including examinations of astronaut bone loss. The
crew also is conducting a wide range of physical science, Earth observation,
human research and technology demonstration investigations. Experiments will
investigate how fire behaves in space, which could help improve engine fuel efficiency
and fire suppression methods in space and on Earth. Other research will look at
fluids that change physical properties in the presence of a magnet, which could
improve bridge and building designs to better withstand earthquakes. With the
help of cameras set up by the crew, students on Earth are capturing photos of
our planet.
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