Russia’s first manned spaceship Soyuz carrying two Russians and one American blasted off for the International Space Station (ISS) today.
NASA astronaut Joseph Acaba, Russians Gennady Padalka and Gennady Padalka, started their space journey by launching the Soyuz TMA-04M rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, according to source.
The rocket blasted off with a one-and-a-half month’s delay from March 30 over a problem with the hull of the Russian-built capsule for launch, which damaged after an accident during pressure tests.
Although mission was delayed, but according to Padalka is making his fourth space flight, it will be extremely intense with 40 experiments planned on the Russian segment of the station alone.
Expressing feeling to succeed, the mission control said their Soyuz TMA-04 M capsule was successfully delivered into orbit, with the rocket stages detatching as planned, and all the crew were feeling good.
Now after successful take off of the first manned flight from Baikonur, Russia is the one and only nation having gadgets to move humans to the ISS, bring withdraw from the US shuttle.
The Soyuz rockets are the workhorse of the Russian space programme. These were the rockets that downed from the rocket that took Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961.
This space flight was first trip for Revin, while Acaba had previously made one flight into space. Amongst them, Padalka is one of Russia’s most experienced active cosmonauts who has already spent 585 days in space and made eight spacewalks, following flight to the ISS in 2004 and 2009.
