Soyuz 26 awaits a pre-dawn launching from Kazkhstan with American Ron Garan and Russians Alexander Samokutyaev and Andrey Borisenko. Photo Credit/NASA TV
A Soyuz rocket carrying NASA astronaut Ron Garan and two Russian cosmonauts lifted off safely from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan late Monday, initiating a five to six month journey to the International Space Station.
Garan, Andrey Borisenko and Alexander Samokutyaev were on course to dock with the orbiting science laboratory on Wednesday at 7:18 p.m., EDT.
Their nine minute climb to orbit began on Monday at 6:18 p.m., EDT, on in the pre-dawn of April 5 in Kazkhstan. The ascent placed them in an initial 143 mile by 118 mile orbit.
“We have no issues” the Soyuz crew informed Moscow’s Mission Control. “We are starting our work now.”
As they dock, the three men will be greeted by the station’s Expedition 27 crew, Dmitry Kondratyev, NASA’s Catherine Coleman and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli of Italy. The Russian, American and Italian have staffed the orbiting science laboratory since mid-December.
Borisenko is scheduled to assume command of the station as Kondratyev and his colleagues return to Earth in mid-May.
Ron Garan, Alexander Samokutyaev and Andrey Borisenko, pictured left to right, prepare to lift off. Photo Credit/NASA photo
The Soyuz rocket was emblazoned with the image of Yuri Gagarin, the world’s first space traveler. Gagarin’s brief historic orbital flight aboard Vostok 1 took place 50 years ago on April 12. The Vostok 1 departed from the same Site 1 launch pad at Baikonur.
“It was a special day,” said Garan of the brief April 12, 1961 Vostok mission in his pre-launch comments. “We became a species no longer confined to the boundaries of Earth.”
Garan, 49, a retired U. S. Air Force colonel, flew previously aboard shuttle Discovery on the 2008 mission that equipped the station with Japan’s Kibo science module.
Borisenko, 46, an R. S. C. Energia flight engineer, and Samokutyaev, 41, a lieutenant colonel in the Russian Air Force, are flying in space for the first time.