Early November 14 morning, the International Space Station Expedition 29 launched aboard a Soyuz TMA-22 capsule out of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. This is the first crewed spaceflight since the retirement of NASA’s Space Shuttle in July.
The successful launch follows a suspension of Soyuz flights after the August 24 crash of an ISS supply vehicle using a similar booster to the Soyuz-FG which is used to launch the Soyuz TMA-22 capsule. The suspension resulted in this launch being rescheduled from September 22.
The flight, which occurred during a snowstorm in Baikonur, was “fairly flawless” according to NASA. Aboard the Soyuz TMA-22 are NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin. The crew is scheduled to dock with ISS on November 15.
Current ISS crew Mike Fossum, Satoshi Furukawa, and Sergei Volkov are scheduled to return to Earth on November 22, initiating ISS Expedition 30.
The video below is a recording of NASA’s live feed of the launch.
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