BAIKONUR COSMODROME, KAZAKHSTAN - A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted into space this morning from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan en route to teh International Space Station carrying the complex's next long-duration crew and a tourist making his second trip to space.
VIDEO: SOYUZ TMA-14 POSTLAUNCH VIDEO FILE VIDEO: SOYUZ LAUNCH REPLAYS VIDEO: SOYUZ LAUNCHES WITH EXPEDITION 19 CREW VIDEO: EXTENDED SOYUZ LAUNCH COMMENTARY - NASA TV VIDEO: EXPEDITION 19 PRELAUNCH ACTIVITIES Expedition 19 commander Gennady Padalka, American flight engineer Michael Barratt and Charles Simonyi lifted off in their Soyuz TMA-14 at 7:49 a.m. EST. Nine minutes after launch, the spacecraft settled into orbit and began a two-day race to catch up with the space station for docking March 28. Expedition 18 will dock with the aft docking port of the station's Zvezda service module around 9:14 a.m. Saturday, just hours before space shuttle Discovery is due to complete the STS-119 mission with a landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Padalka and Barratt will replace outgoing Expedition 18 crewmembers commander Michael Fincke and Russian flight engineer Yury Lonchakov. They will join Koichi Wakata, from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, who arrived at the space station with Discovery last week. Wakata replaced Sandra Magnus, who will return with the STS-119 crew after 154 days in space. Fincke and Lonchakov are completing a 5 and a half month tour of duty on the station. They are due to return to Earth with Simonyi April 7 on board the Soyuz TMA-113 spacecraft that brought them to the station last year. The Expedition 19 crewmembers will arrive at the station to find a newly expanded lab complex, courtesy of shuttle Discovery. During the STs-119 mission, astronauts added the fourth and final set of solar arrays, the starboard S6 truss segment. The shuttle also delivered a ne urine processing assembly to replace an identical unit that failed shortly after it was installed during the previous shuttle mission. The assembly is a critical subsystem of the station's new water recycling system which is essential to the station's ability to support six astronauts living aboard beginning in May. Today's launch is important for the program's international partners eager to begin utilizing the full capabilities of the complex's laboratory modules. Most significantly, the launch of Soyuz TMA-14 marks the beginning of the transition to expanded six-person crew operations, the station's long-term crew size. On May 27, another Soyuz will blastoff with Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne of Belgium and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk to complete the station's first six-person crew. The arrival of the Soyuz in May qill also mark the first, and possibly last, time astornauts from all major partners will be living on board the station at the same time. (The Spacearium / Space Media Corporation)
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