The Soyuz spacecraft launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Wednesday afternoon local time carrying astronauts Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold, and cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev.
The three-man flight has safely blasted off the Earth's atmosphere and is expected to dock in the International Space Station (ISS) approximately Friday afternoon, March 23. The team will join the rest of the crew members at the ISS to augment responsibilities and space programs.
Currently, the ISS is manned by cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, who is also the commander of Expedition 55, together with Scott Tingle from NASA and Norishige Kanai of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Once the Soyuz flight has docked, the ISS will complete its six-man crew.
Augmenting Space Work
The crew will head straight away in performing laboratory duties and scientific experiments. Feustel and Arnold are reported to conduct a spacewalk on March 29 to install cameras and wireless receivers on the ISS exterior.
"The crew members will spend more than five months conducting about 250 science investigations in fields such as biology, earth science, human research, physical sciences, and technology development," NASA said in an official statement.
Their experiments will determine how crystals are formed in space and how the space environment affects the production of red blood cells.
The ISS is also preparing to dock SpaceX's Dragon capsule that is scheduled to launch on April 2. The Dragon capsule is designed to carry both humans and cargo, only this time the spacecraft is unmanned.
Preparing To Dock
In a pre-flight press conference on Tuesday, Artemyev shared that he is taking a football up in space. The said football is the one that will kick off the 2018 World Cup in summer with Russia as the host country.
Artemyev, Feustel, and Arnold have years of space experience under their belt, although this is the first time that the two Americans will be staying in ISS.
Feustel previously manned two shuttles, the STS-125 and Hubble Space Telescope repair in 2009. Artemyev, on the other hand, lived in ISS for 169 days in 2014.
Shkaplerov, Tingle, and Kanai are set to return to Earth in June after a four-month stay in the station. Artemyev, Feustel, and Arnold will conclude their mission in August.
Elon Musk's company, SpaceX, and aircraft company Boeing have teamed up in a multibillion-dollar project that will develop space shuttles for NASA. Currently, the Soyuz is the sole ride that carries astronauts and cosmonauts to the ISS.
