Launched Tuesday Morning Aboard A Soyuz Spacecraft

NASA astronaut Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts Evgeny Tarelkin and Oleg Novitskiy launched aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket on their mission to the International Space Station at 0651 EDT Tuesday. The trio lifted off from Site 31 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. This is the first time in 28 years the pad has been used for human spaceflight.

Ford, Tarelkin and Novitskiy are expected to dock their Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft with ISS on Thursday. Novitskiy is serving as the commander of the Soyuz and will be at the controls as the spacecraft docks with the Poisk module of the station Thursday. The three will join Expedition 33 Commander Sunita Williams of NASA and Flight Engineers Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Yuri Malenchenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency, who have been living aboard the orbiting laboratory since July.

Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin will remain aboard the station until March 2013. Williams, Malenchenko and Hoshide will return to Earth Nov. 19. When Williams, Malenchenko and Hoshide undock from the station, it will signal the end of Expedition 33 and the beginning of Expedition 34 with Ford as commander.

(Image courtesy NASA)

FMI: www.nasa.gov