The International Space Station (ISS) will get a new crew in record time. Today a Russian Soyuz spacecraft will launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with one NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts. They will dock with the ISS a little more than six hours later, the fastest docking time for a manned mission. Unmanned missions have used the accelerated docking but never a manned mission. The crew will make only four orbits of earth and then dock with the ISS, where it has taken two days in the past.
“The four-orbit rendezvous has the advantage of a very short period of time from launch to docking,” Mike Suffredini, NASA’s International Space Station program manager, said of the mission. “It reduces the amount of time the crew has to spend in a small environment before they get to ISS.”
The new crew will join three crew members already aboard for a six month mission filled with science experiments, station upkeep, and visits form robotic supply missions.
For more information on the mission or to watch the launch, visit www.Space.com or visit www.NASA.gov and search for NASA TV.
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