Successful Launch Thursday

For the first time since Brian Binnie piloted SpaceShipOne on its historic flight last earlier this month, another manned mission has been launched -- this time, a Russian Soyuz carrying two Russians and an American to the International Space Station.

Aboard the Soyuz capsule, which blasted off routinely from the Soviet Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Thursday morning, are American Leroy Chiao and Russian Salizhan Sharipov, along with Russian space rookie Yuri Shargin.

Chiao and Sharipov will live aboard the space station for six months, replacing American Michael Fincke and Russian Gennady Padalka. This is the tenth crew to man the space station since it was first built.

Like several crews in the recent past, only two of the astronauts on Mission 10 will stay aboard for six months after they relieve Padalka and Fincke. Shargin will take Crew 9 home with him when he returns to Earth October 23rd.

But all five men will be intensely busy between now and then. "There is a lot to turn over for a two person crew," said NASA's Kent Rominger, who was in Kazakhstan for the launch. "It will be very, very busy, but very, very exciting." Rominger was quoted in Florida Today.

The Russian Soyuz is carrying more than people, though. It's also carrying critical spares to repair a faulty oxygen generator -- one of the myriad of maintenance issues aboard the ISS.

As is typical with such launches, Russian space officials were determinedly nonchalant about the entire affair. Vladimir Solovyov, the chief of Russia's mission control in Korolyov, outside Moscow, told Florida Today, "All three are flying for first time on Soyuz. I don't see any problems. Does it really matter what vehicle you're in? The most irritable factor is just being in space."

FMI: www.nasa.gov