Russia Launches Rocket with Russian, US Astronauts

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, April 26, 2003

Russia Launches Rocket with Russian, US Astronauts

Russia launched a Soyuz TMA-2 rocket with Russian and US astronauts for the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday. The 40-meter rocket, with American astronaut Edward Lu and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko aboard, blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:54 a.m. Moscow time (0354 GMT).

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A US-Russian crew blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome on Saturday in a mission to keep the International Space Station operating despite the US space shuttle disaster.

Live television pictures showed the Soyuz capsule carrying the crew of two lifting off at 0353 GMT into a partly cloudy sky on the first manned flight to the ISS since Columbia broke up on re-entry in February.

Space officials said the craft had entered Earth orbit without incident. Preparations were under way for the Soyuz to dock with the ISS on Monday -- after 33 trips around the Earth.

"This flight is proceeding according to plan. All parameters are according to norms," Vladimir Solovyov, flight director for the ISS, told reporters at mission control outside Moscow. "The crew is feeling fine but they have a long working day ahead."

The six-month mission by Russian flight commander Yuri Malenchenko, 41, and U.S. flight engineer Edward Lu, 39, aims to keep the $95 billion ISS flying and underscore the importance of continued work in space.

Seven astronauts died in the Columbia disaster, which left Russia with the bulk of the work of ferrying crews and equipment to the 16-nation station. Columbia did not visit the ISS.

The current mission is to replace a crew of three -- US station commander Ken Bowersox, flight engineer Donald Pettit and Russian flight engineer Nikolai Budarin.

Their return to Earth was put back from March after all US shuttles were grounded until an investigation into the disaster was completed. The crew is now due to return on May 4 aboard a Soyuz craft already docked at the space station, while the new capsule will remain there.

CONCERN OVER SUPPLIES

Because of the worries over supplies, the crew of the current mission is limited to two for the first time. Space normally reserved for a third member is assigned to extra water and food.

"Without the space shuttle we are now reduced to the Russian Progress vehicles to carry our space station's supplies," Joel Montalbano, a NASA flight director for the ISS, told Reuters, referring to an unmanned Russian supply ship.

"We have a reduced program, but the team is going to be continuing with observations, personal experiments and interaction with each other."

The shuttle can carry seven people and a 25-tonpayload. Russia's Progress and Soyuz capsules carry a maximum of three passengers and 2.5 tonnes of cargo.

Jefferson D. Howell, director for US space agency NASA's Johnson Center in Houston, told Reuters in Baikonur on the eve of the launch that Russia was "taking the load right now to make it succeed. And I know it'll come through very well."

Howell said he was "very sure" US space shuttles would fly again "within at least a year from now."

As well as carrying out an ambitious program of work, the mission aims to dispel concerns about the station's future.

"We are doing what I think they would have wanted and what their families wished them to do -- to continue the process of flying into space," Lu told the final briefing on Friday.

He said he would attach a badge to his space suit in memory of the Columbia astronauts.

Source: agencies

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