spacetoday.net: Soyuz launched to ISS

Posted: Sat, Apr 7, 2007, 4:08 PM ET (2008 GMT)
Soyuz TMA-10 launch (NASA)

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russian cosmonauts and an American space tourist lifted off Saturday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on a mission to the International Space Station. The Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft lifted off on schedule at 1:31 pm EDT (1731 GMT) Saturday and entered low Earth orbit nine minutes later. On board the Soyuz are two Russian cosmonauts, Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov, and Hungarian-born American businessman Charles Simonyi, the fifth commercial passenger to fly on a Soyuz mission to the ISS. The Soyuz is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Monday afternoon. Simonyi will remain at the ISS for over a week, returning on the Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft currently docked at the station on April 20 with ISS crew members Mike Lopez-Alegria and Mikhail Tyurin; Yurchikhin and Kotov will remain on the station for a six-month tour of duty.