Russia’s manned spacecraft docks with ISS
December 24th, 2011 - 3:05 am ICT by IANSMoscow, Dec 24 (IANS) Russia’s Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft with three astronauts onboard has docked with the International Space Station (ISS), the Mission Control Centre said.
The spacecraft docked with the ISS’ Rassvet mini-research module at 1919 Moscow time (1519 GMT) Friday, Xinhua reported.
The new crew include Russia’s Oleg Kononenko, Andre Kuipers from the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA’s Donald Pettit.
The trio would join Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoli Ivanishin from Russia and Daniel Burbank from NASA at the ISS and spend 147 days in space.
Russian federal space agency Roscosmos said the enlarged ISS crew would conduct 71 scientific experiments as well as a space walk Feb 14.
RIA Novosti said the mission’s programme also includes the docking of five freighters from different states — two Russian Progress spacecraft, the European unmanned cargo resupply spacecraft ATV-003 Edoardo Amaldi and two US freighters.
The Soyuz TMA-03M had blasted off from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan Wednesday.
After the retirement of the US shuttle fleet, Russia’s Soyuz has become the only way for astronauts to reach the ISS.
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- New space station crew in orbit - May 15, 2012
- Russia launches manned spacecraft to ISS - Nov 14, 2011
- Space station crew land safely in Kazakhstan (Lead) - Nov 22, 2011
- Astronauts rush to safety as space junk whizz by - Mar 25, 2012
- Russian spacecraft returns to earth - Jul 02, 2012
- Russian space agency names next crew to ISS - Oct 25, 2011
- Russian spacecraft undocks from ISS - Nov 22, 2011
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- Russian cargo spacecraft docks with ISS - Nov 02, 2011
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