Source: Spaceflight Now
Lighting up the pre-dawn Kazakhstan sky, a Russian Soyuz rocket carrying a veteran cosmonaut and two NASA astronauts roared to life and vaulted into orbit Tuesday, kicking off a two-day flight to the International Space Station.
Station veteran Fyodor Yurchikhin and NASA astronauts Douglas Wheelock, a shuttle veteran, and rookie flight engineer Shannon Walker lifted off aboard the Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft at 5:35:19 p.m. EDT (3:35:19 a.m. Wednesday local time) from Yuri Gagarin’s launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Riding atop a torrent of fiery exhaust from its multiple first stage rocket engines, the Soyuz quickly climbed away from the launch pad and arced away to the east through a clear, dark sky.
There were no apparent problems during the climb to space. Shutdown and separation of the first-stage strap-on boosters was clearly visible on NASA television and all three crew members appeared relaxed and in good spirits as the rocket accelerated.
Eight-and-a-half minutes after launch, the spacecraft slipped into its planned preliminary orbit with a high point of 161 miles and a low point of 134 miles. A few moments later, its solar arrays and antennas deployed as planned to complete the ascent.
“OK, guys, all the best to you,” a Russian flight controller radioed in an interpreted feed. “That’s it.”
Including manned space shuttles and Soyuz capsules, along with unmanned Russian, European and Japanese cargo ships, this was the 100th launch supporting space station operations since assembly began in 1998.
Walker, a private pilot and wife of shuttle astronaut Andrew Thomas, was trained to serve as Soyuz flight engineer, assisting Yurchikhin in critical phases of flight.
“Only a handful of us have been trained as the co-pilots on the Soyuz, and it’s quite an extensive training process,” Walker said in a NASA interview. “I’ve spent the better part of the last three years over in Russia working with my Russian colleagues and my Russian instructors to learn how to be the co-pilot, so it’s quite an endeavor.”
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