Soyuz Rocket launched towards International Space Station (ISS)

A Soyuz spacecraft has been successfully launched towards the ISS (international Space Station) this Wednesday with three astronauts. This marks the 500th manned launch of our space history. The Soyuz TMA 18M rocket blasted off in to the space along with the astronaut trio at 0437 GMT. The trio includes first danish citizen ever to go for space travel. Another interesting fact is that the launchpad used by Yuri Gagarin in 1961for his historic space travel was used in this launch. Mission control, Baikonur relayed, “The crew is doing well, and everything is in order onboard.” The team is being led by Sergei Volkov, veteran cosmonaut of Russian Space Agency “Roscosmos”. The other two in the team are first time flyers – Andreas Mogensen of European Space Agency, Denmark and Aidyn Aimbetov of Kazcosmos, Kazakhstan.

The team is expected to take two days to journey to the ISS and will dock on Friday. Mogensen and Aimbetov both will return to earth by September 11 whereas Volkov will stay at ISS itself. Aimbetov is third from his country and is the replacement for Sarah Brightman. ESA organized a Google hangout in which Mogensen said, “It’s a great honour for me to represent Denmark as an astronaut.” This is the first launch from Baikonur since 23rd July. Participants in the previous mission were Oleg Kononenko from Russia, Kjell Lindgren from US and Kimiya Yu of Japan. The mission was of 163 days duration. In late April before these missions an unmanned progress freighter mission failed causing Russia to put hold on all the space travel missions. The ship burned up after losing contact with Earth and a whole group of astronauts had to spend more than a month on ISS. One of the facets of international cooperation unaffected by Ukrainian crisis is space travel.

Soyuz is Russian for “union” and consists of expandable launch systems. It is one of the most often launch vehicle and has been developed by OKB-1. The U.S. space shuttle program ended in 2011. The only means left for transporting astronauts was the Soyuz rocket. Soyuz vehicles are used for launching both manned Soyuz spacecraft and unmanned progress supply spacecraft.

Image Source: NASA TV