This is an updated version of a story first posted at 12:15 a.m. EDTCAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Determined to continue on in the wake of the Columbia tragedy, NASA and its international partners sent a new crew on its way to the space station late Friday atop a Russian rocket.
Cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and astronaut Ed Lu safely arrived in Earth orbit just nine minutes after blasting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
A solid round of applause when the Soyuz spacecraft separated from the rocket's third stage broke the otherwise calm and routine manner of flight controllers near Moscow, many of whom had Columbia and its crew in their thoughts.
"This flight is very important from a psychological point of view given the Columbia tragedy," said Russian flight director Vladimir Solovyev.
"It was a great show," added Michael Kostelnik, NASA's spaceflight chief in Washington, D.C., who was present for the first time at the storied space center where Yuri Gagarin began the world's first piloted spaceflight into orbit.
Also pleased with the results of the launch was NASA Deputy Administrator Frederick Gregory, who also was on his first visit to Baikonur and said "I think you have to be impressed with the the Russian's ability to simplify a very complex activity."
The 11:53:51 p.m. EDT (00353.51 GMT Saturday) liftoff began a two-day chase of the International Space Station that is scheduled to conclude with a 1:56 a.m. EDT (0556 GMT) docking Monday.With the launch Lu became the third NASA astronaut to ride into orbit atop a Soyuz rocket.
American businessman Dennis Tito also rode a Soyuz rocket, and returned to Earth in a Soyuz capsule as well, when he became the world's first fare-paying space tourist in 2001.
The Expedition Seven crew is to spend the next six months taking care of the orbital outpost, with their first task that of relieving the Expedition Six crew, who will be heading home May 3.
Launched into orbit aboard Endeavour last November, Expedition Six commander Ken Bowersox, science officer Don Pettit and Soyuz commander Nikolai Budarin were scheduled to be returned to Earth aboard shuttle Atlantis in March.
With the loss Feb. 1 of Columbia and its seven-member crew, space station program managers were forced to change their plans as the fleet was grounded during the investigation.
Instead, the three-man crew will return to Earth riding the Soyuz TMA spacecraft that was taxied up to the station last October.
Remembering friends
In tribute to his lost friends on Columbia, Lu wore an STS-107 patch on the right arm of his spacesuit.
"We are doing what I think they would have wanted and what their families would have wanted us to do -- continue the process of flying into space," Lu said Friday.
Lu told journalists before the launch that it was particularly fitting he stayed in the same room in Baikonur's Cosmonaut Hotel as the crew that participated in the 1975 Apollo Soyuz Test Project.
The combination of Lu and Malenchenko is a familiar one: In 2000, the two flew to the space station to help prepare it for its permanent crew and took a spacewalk together to hook up exterior cables.
Malenchenko said that in the wake of the shuttle disaster, many of their planned projects on the station had to be sidelined. Instead, their main task is to keep the outpost running smoothly until the shuttle resumes service.
Malenchenko and Lu will be replaced in October by a two-member Expedition Eight crew, who also will fly to the station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
When shuttle launch operations resume, the first mission will be a resupply flight to the station led by veteran commander Eileen Collins.
For now the station program will rely on Russia to keep the outpost occupied.
"This flight secures the future of the International Space Station as the station cannot fly in an unmanned mode, and this is my firm belief," Solovyev said.
SPACE.com's Simon Saradzhyan from Moscow and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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