Soyuz spacecraft set for next space station crew launch Tuesday

Baikonur (Kazakhstan): A Soyuz spacecraft is all set to launch next three crew members bound for the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, December 15.

NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko will be joined by Tim Peake of ESA (European Space Agency), who will become the first Briton to go to space since 1991.

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The three are scheduled to launch on Tuesday, December 15, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 6:03 a.m. (5:03 p.m. Baikonur time) for a six-month stay on the orbital complex.

According to NASA, the trio will rendezvous with the space station and dock to the Rassvet module at 12:24 p.m. And the hatches between the Soyuz and space station will be opened at about 2:25 p.m.

The newly arrived crew members will be greeted by Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly of NASA and Flight Engineers Sergey Volkov and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos.

Together, the Expedition 46 crew members will continue the several hundred experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science currently underway and scheduled to take place aboard humanity’s only orbiting laboratory.

Meanwhile, Expedition 45 Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren of NASA is among three crew members who returned to Earth last Friday after a 141-day mission aboard the space station, landing in Kazakhstan at approximately 8:12 a.m. EST (7:12 p.m. Kazakhstan time).