Tim Peake, the UK’s first official astronaut, along with US astronaut Tim Kopra and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko blasted into space aboard the Soyuz rocket today.
Advertisement
ISS Astronauts On Spacewalk
With their primary task completed, Kelly and Kopra split up to work on separate tasks of routing cables along the space station. The astronauts may then turn to a few other get-ahead tasks as part of their ongoing maintenance and upgrades of the ISS.
NASA’s live broadcast from the Russian Mission Control showed the Soyuz spacecraft mooring at the space outpost at 8:33 p.m. Moscow time (1733 GMT) about 6 ½ hours after lifting off from the Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan.
SpaceX rocket returns to Earth safely
SpaceX is leasing the landing area, a former Atlas missile-launching site, from the Air Force. Blastoff of SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on December 21, 2015.
Alongside Peake is Yuri Malenchenko who is an ex-Russian Air Force pilot and who has had a few long-duration space flight in the past.
Martin Shkreli, “pharma bro”, fired by KaloBios
He admitted to the Journal that his brash public persona had become “a bit of an act” that would be “fun to experiment with”. In a statement , KaloBios , said that Tony Chase also stepped down from the company’s board.
The 68-year-old singer – whose 1972 space single “Rocket Man” reached number two in the United Kingdom charts – took to his Twitter account to wish Tim well as he prepared to become the first Brit to join the International Space Station crew.
Malenchenko was particularly up to the task: He is a veteran of six space missions, both to the International Space Station and Russia’s Mir space station, and he has commanded the Soyuz during launch multiple times.
Image copyright EPA Image caption The timing of the launch was calculated based on the precise location of the International Space Station in its orbit.
His spokeswoman said the British cabinet had hailed Peak’s mission as “an inspiration for people up and down the country, particularly young people and children looking to study science”. The spacecraft docked successfully at the space station roughly six hours after liftoff.
Upon arrival, Major Peake and his crew will spend six months performing a variety of experiments and tests for researchers.
The ISS space laboratory has been orbiting the Earth at roughly 28,000 kilometres an hour since 1998. Before they docked they had to catch up with the station, which travels at 17,500mph at an average altitude of 220 miles.
Kopra had been to the space station for two months in 2009.
This is the picture astronaut Tim Kopra took of Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ocean Rain the last time he visited the worldwide space station.
The European Space Agency tweeted that fuelling has begun – filling the Russian rocket with 274 tonnes of fuel.
The three astronauts will return to Earth on June 5th.
Advertisement
He will also run the distance of the London Marathon in April, but on a treadmill aboard the ISS.
