ISS Crew Launches From Baikonur

Just a few days after China's first-ever manned space flight, an international team of three blasted off for the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Saturday. The Soyuz TMA-3 capsule is scheduled to dock with the ISS early Monday.

"This is a very historic day. It again demonstrates the depth of commitment to this partnership," NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said after the launch. "Russian cosmonauts and (Russian space authority) Rosaviakosmos are carrying the substantial load of maintaining the space station," O'Keefe said, adding that new space power China might also take part one day.

O'Keefe's overt diplomacy and Russia-stroking is essential to keeping the ISS manned, since the American shuttle fleet will remain grounded for at least another year. In the meantime, the Russians are still grumbling about the high costs involved. But when the word "money" was mentioned, O'Keefe seemed to have nothing to offer the Russians. He said they should continue with their commitment. O'Keefe said the US is spending quite enough just trying to keep the space station manned and get the shuttles back in orbit. "All the expense and resources the American people are putting into returning the Shuttle to flight, we have no intention of passing these bills across to any of our partners," he said.

At some point, though, the money thing is expected to come to a head. Russia warns that financial issues could delay the next Progress resupply launch from November until January.

Family members and friends of US mission commander Michael Foale, cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri and Spanish astronaut Pedro Duque watched the lift-off silently, waiting precisely 600 seconds before breaking into applause. The ten minutes is how long it takes a Soyuz to go from ground to orbit.

Duque was originally supposed to be part of the ISS-8 crew transferred to the station. Instead, he'll spend just a week there, then head back for Earth with Mission 7's Edward Lu and Yuri Malenchenko.  The Russian crew member will go home for a belated honeymoon, having married his sweetheart via radio link while she was in Houston.

There were both Russian and American overtures to the world's newest space power, China. Kaleri, who will spend 200 days in space with Foale, said China could one day join in ISS operations. "We hope the time when we cooperate in manned flights, including within the ISS project, is not too far off," he said on Friday.

Lu, Malenchenko and Duque are scheduled to land in the vast steps of Siberia on October 28. They're equipped with a satellite phone and a GPS device -- just in case there's trouble like the first time a TMA-3 was used to shuttle the ISS crew up and down. It went off course, landing far from its intended target. Recovery teams had to spend two hours looking for them before they were picked up.

FMI: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station