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In Focus
Astronaut trio
blasts off for space station
A Soyuz spacecraft blasted off for the International Space Station on
June 7 with a Russian, American and a Japanese astronaut on board.The
cramped Russian craft delivered cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, Japan's Satoshi
Furukawa and 53-year-old NASA astronaut Michael Fossum to the orbital
station after a two-day voyage up from the Kazakh steppe.
Its booster rocket trailing a jet of flame in the night sky, the
Soyuz TMA-02M lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on schedule.
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U.S. astronaut Michael Fossum gives a thumbs-up during a test of
his spacesuit at the Baikonur cosmodrome. |
Furukawa, 47, was in orbit for the first time, while Volkov, 38, is
following in the footsteps of his father Alexander, who spent more than
a year in space under the flag of the Soviet Union. The trio is to spend
six months on the station, a stint that will include the docking of the
U.S. space shuttle Atlantis, after it is launched on July 8 on NASA's
last planned shuttle mission before the fleet is retired.
Volkov, Furukawa and Fossum were greeted upon arrival - on June 9 by
NASA astronaut Ron Garan and Russians Andrey Borisenko and Alexander
Samokutyayev, who have been aboard the station since April.
Volkov is to blog on the Russian space agency website from the
station.
While Europe worries about a deadly E.coli outbreak blamed on raw
vegetables, Volkov is to try growing cucumbers, and Furukawa, tomatoes
on the station.t At a pre-launch news conference they said jokingly that
they might even make a salad.
The station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations, has been under
construction about 220 miles above the Earth since 1998. A football
field-sized mix of mostly Russian and American-built modules, it can
accommodate a crew of six.
But rides there are going to be harder to catch, and only Russia will
be able to provide them.
With NASA mothballing its shuttle fleet, it will be at least four
years before its astronauts can fly out of the United States again.
Until new ships are ready, Russia will ferry crews to the station at a
cost of more than $50 million per person.
- Courtesy: Reuters |
