CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
|
A Russian Soyuz
capsule carrying a NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts arrived at
the International Space Station on Friday, ending a nearly six-hour
flight, a NASA TV broadcast showed. U.S.
astronaut Jeff Williams and cosmonauts Oleg Skripochka and Alexey
Ovchinin blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5:26
p.m. EDT (2126 GMT) and reached the station at 11:09 p.m. EDT (0309
GMT).
They replace a crew that ended a nearly year-long flight earlier this month.
Williams, a grandfather and veteran of three previous spaceflights, noted that he has been in space with 45 different people over the years. He, Skripochka, who has flown once before, and Ovchinin, a rookie, will spend about six months living and working aboard the station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.
The U.S. space agency and Russia have not yet assigned crews for additional year-long missions following the March 1 return of astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko from a 340-day spaceflight.
Williams, 58, who will be serving aboard the station for a third time, is expected to return to Earth with a career total of 534 days in space. This would surpass the current U.S. record, which is Kelly's cumulative 520 days.
The world record belongs to Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who returned from his fifth flight last September and has spent a total of 879 days in space.
They replace a crew that ended a nearly year-long flight earlier this month.
Williams, a grandfather and veteran of three previous spaceflights, noted that he has been in space with 45 different people over the years. He, Skripochka, who has flown once before, and Ovchinin, a rookie, will spend about six months living and working aboard the station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.
The U.S. space agency and Russia have not yet assigned crews for additional year-long missions following the March 1 return of astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko from a 340-day spaceflight.
Williams, 58, who will be serving aboard the station for a third time, is expected to return to Earth with a career total of 534 days in space. This would surpass the current U.S. record, which is Kelly's cumulative 520 days.
The world record belongs to Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who returned from his fifth flight last September and has spent a total of 879 days in space.
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