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Space mission ready to blast off
Source: Agencies |
December 21, 2009, Monday
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THREE astronauts from the United States, Japan and Russia received the go-ahead on Saturday for a holiday season rocket launch to the International Space Station from Russia's remote space complex in southern Kazakhstan.
Their Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft has been hoisted into place at the Baikonur center for a mission that will boost the number of crew at the orbital laboratory to five members.
NASA's Timothy J. Creamer, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov and Soichi Noguchi of Japan will blast off today at 3:52am in the first-ever launch of a Soyuz spaceship on a winter night.
Creamer, who is making his maiden space voyage, says he will keep people back on Earth up-to-date via Twitter.
"I thought if I can give you the status of what I am doing, what we are hoping for, what we are looking forward to seeing, those would be good little teasers," he said after a medical check on the three astronauts.
Since arriving for training in Baikonur earlier this month, Creamer has been using tweets to keep in touch with space enthusiasts and well-wishers.
One recent tweet read: "Da da da!! Ready and raring to go!"
After liftoff, the Soyuz will travel about two days before docking with the space station.
Creamer said it was sad to be leaving family and friends behind over the Christmas holidays, but that space travel brought some consolation.
"I also have to say we are going as a family together to a family in space," he said.
The space station swung into the festive mood this week with a video Christmas greeting beamed to Earth daily by its current occupants.
On its Website, NASA has created a series of virtual postcards for members of the public to send to the space station with their holiday greetings.
Kotov is traveling to the space station for his second time, having served as a flight engineer in 2007. He takes over as commander of Expedition 23 in March.
The three astronauts will be joining Jeff Williams, a NASA astronaut, and Russia's Maxim Surayev, who have been on the space station by themselves since the start of the month.
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