SPACE.com -- ISS-Bound Soyuz Rocket Rolls Out to Launch Pad

At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft and its booster rolled out to the launch pad on March 28, 2006 for final pre-launch preparations. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls. Click to enlarge.

After rollout, the Soyuz rocket capped with the Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft are hoisted into launch position at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls. Click to enlarge.

International Space Station Expedition 13 commander and Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, Brazilian Space Agency Astronaut Marcos Pontes, and Expedition 13 flight engineer Jeff Williams pose for the media during a tour of the Soyuz assembly building at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on March 26, 2006. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls. Click to enlarge.

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	ISS-Bound Soyuz Rocket Rolls Out to Launch Pad By Kadyr Toktogulov Associated Press Writer posted: 28 March 2006 12:51 p.m. ET

out to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome Tuesday, taking the final steps to prepare for a space crew's upcoming mission to the International Space Station.

Workers moved the massive, gray and white Soyuz TMA-8 on train rails from its assembly site only 48 hours before it will hurtle from the Central Asian steppe into space carrying Russian Pavel Vinogradov, American Jeffrey Williams and Brazil's first astronaut, Marcos Cesar Pontes. The mission will include experiments designed to see how humans react to prolonged space travel.

"We can return to the moon and ultimately to Mars,'' said Kirk Shireman, NASA's deputy manager for the space station as he described how the knowledge gleaned from the experiments would be used.

The American space program has depended on Russian Soyuz and Progress craft to ferry its astronauts and supplies to the orbiting space station ever since the 2003 Columbia disaster grounded the U.S. shuttle fleet. Though the shuttle Discovery visited the station in July, troubles with its foam insulation on its external fuel tank have cast doubt on when the shuttle will fly again.

Shireman said the United States would continue to rely on the trusty Soyuz to make its twice-yearly missions to the space station to deliver new crews and bring back astronauts, despite a shuttle flight scheduled for July.

"The space station is a partnership and we'll need Soyuz vehicles, Progress vehicles as well as shuttles to be successful on the International Space Station,'' Shireman said.