Three
astronauts bound for the International Space Station (ISS) are circling the
Earth inside a Russian space capsule after successfully launching into orbit
atop a Soyuz rocket.
Tucked
inside their Soyuz TMA-6 spacecraft, ISS Expedition 11 commander Sergei
Krikalev, flight engineer John Phillips and Italian astronaut Roberto Vittori,
have begun a two-day journey that will ultimately ferry them to the space
station.
"No problems with the
launch," Krikalev told flight controllers as his spacecraft rose up from
its launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Liftoff
occurred on time at 8:46 p.m. EDT (0046 April 15 GMT), though it was 6:46 a.m.
Local Time at Baikonur. Vittori and the Expedition 11 crew launched from the
same launch pad that saw Russia's
first manned space shot - the successful and historic spaceflight of Yuri
Gagarin - that began the human space age on April 12, 1961.
Vittori and
the Expedition 11 crew are due to arrive at the ISS on April 16 at about 10:10
p.m. EDT (0210 April 17 GMT), then open the hatches separating their Soyuz
capsule and the station about three hours later.
ISS crew change
Krikalev
and Phillips will relieve the space station's current caretakers, Expedition 10
commander Leroy Chiao and flight engineer Salizhan Sharipov, who have been
living aboard the orbital outpost since October 2004.
Vittori, a visiting
astronaut representing the European Space Agency (ESA), will conduct eight days
of science experiments while the Expedition 11 and Expedition 10 crews transfer
ISS control.
All three
men are spaceflight veterans though today's launch marked the beginning of
Krikalev's sixth launch, the most amassed by any cosmonaut. By the end of
Expedition 11, he will have spent about 800 days living in space and set a new
all-time record.
But before
that Krikalev can commemorate his new spaceflight record, Phillips celebrated
his own milestone.
The NASA
astronaut celebrated his 54th birthday just before liftoff,
receiving birthday wishes from his wife Laura and a handmade sign that said
'Happy Birthday Dad.' He has two children.
"We wish
you a safe flight," former cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova,
the first woman in space, told Vittori and the Expedition 11 crew during
prelaunch activities.
"Have a
good time and take good care of the space station," said NASA's acting
administrator Fred Gregory before launch.
Preparing for ISS assembly, shuttle
visits
The launch
of the Expedition 11 crew marks the beginning of a mission that, NASA officials
hope, will see the visit of two space shuttles to the ISS.
After
taking control the station from the Expedition 10 crew, Krikalev and Phillips
will have just a few weeks to prepare for the arrival of the Discovery orbiter
and NASA's STS-114 mission, the agency's first shuttle flight since the Columbia tragedy.
Just as
Russian flight engineers began loading fuel into Expedition 11's Soyuz rocket,
their shuttle counterparts at NASA's Kennedy
Space Center
in Cape Canaveral, Florida completed a fuel loading test of
Discovery's redesigned external tank. Discovery is set to launch no earlier
than May 15.
"There's
something truly aligned about our two space programs," said Bill Gerstenmaier,
NASA ISS program manager, after watching the Expedition 11 crew rocket into
space. "We're in a great position to begin with return to flight of the shuttle
and return to assembly of the space station."
During
their 180-day spaceflight, Krikalev and Phillips will also perform two
spacewalks to support the ISS, receive two cargo delivers aboard unmanned Russian
supply ships and host the crew of NASA's STS-121 crew aboard Atlantis - the
agency's second return to flight shuttle mission - when it arrives sometime in
July.
They also
hope to see the arrival of a third ISS crewmember, something the space station
has gone without since NASA grounded its shuttle fleet after the loss of Columbia. Two-person
crews have kept the ISS in working order until renewed shuttle flights could
once again begin delivering the supplies needed to support a larger crew.
"The maintenance work required when you have three people on
board is basically the same as when you have two people on board, and you've
got one whole extra person to do the scientific work," Phillips said in
prelaunch NASA interview. "I think of it as kind of symbolic, it gets us back
on the road to recovery."
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