Russian Soyuz Craft Successfully Docks At Space Station
On Sunday the Russian Soyuz craft was able to successfully link up with the International Space Station. The spacecraft was carrying one American and two Russian cosmonauts.
The Soyuz craft had taken off from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The Russian Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin informed that the Russian space shuttle reached the orbiting station using an automatic docking system at 9.26 a.m. Moscow time (1:26 a.m. ET) Sunday.
The station already has Russia's Oleg Kotov, NASA's T.J. Creamer and Japan's Soichi Noguchi who are now joined by Tracy Caldwell Dyson of California and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko.
In three days, another 7-people crew from the shuttle Discovery are supposed to dock at the station for a 13-day mission raising the total population of the station to 13. For the first time there will be four women together in space.
The station members who joined on Sunday will be remaining in the orbit till mid-September. They will leave just at the time that Discovery is supposed to go into space again to complete the shuttle fleet's last flight.
American astronaut Caldwell Dyson spoke at a pre-launch press conference of her sadness at the end of the U.S. spacecraft.
She said, "It's bitter, because we're saying goodbye to such a tremendous part of our space program," and added, "We've spent more time in that shuttle than we have in any vehicle and it has blessed with a space station today and many experienced astronauts."
