spacetoday.net: Soyuz launches crew on "express" flight to ISS

Posted: Thu, Mar 28, 2013, 8:38 PM ET (0038 GMT)
Soyuz TMA-08M launch (NASA)

A Soyuz rocket launched a spacecraft carrying three people making what is planned to be the shortest flight to the International Space Station. The Soyuz rocket carrying the Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:43 pm EDT (2043 GMT) Thursday. The spacecraft, carrying American astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin, is making the first "express" trip to the ISS, a journey that normally takes two days. The Soyuz is scheduled to dock with the station's Poisk module at 10:32 pm EDT Thursday (0232 GMT Friday), or less than six hours after liftoff. The same fast approach to the station has been used by Progress cargo spacecraft going to the ISS, but never before by a Soyuz spacecraft traveling to the station.