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Russian-French Crew Blasts off for International Space Station
A Russian-French crew blasted off Sunday for the International Space Station, the rocket lighting up the cloudy sky as it soared over the Kazak steppe.
The three-person crew, which includes French astronaut Claudie Haignere, took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft at 12:59 p.m. Moscow time.
The Soyuz TM-33 separated from its booster rocket nine minutes later as it successfully reached orbit, a spokesman at Russia's mission control near Moscow said.
Haignere, who in 1996 became the first Frenchwoman in space, is serving as crew engineer during 10 days in space with cosmonauts Viktor Afanasyev and Konstantin Kozeyev. As they boarded the Soyuz on Sunday, the two Russians waved while Haignere blew kisses.
"I brought some music, some pictures ... and I brought my daughter's little teddy bear," Haignere, whose daughter is three years old, said in pre-takeoff remarks broadcast on France-2 television.
A rheumatologist and expert in neuroscience, Haignere, 44, will be responsible for mooring the Soyuz capsule to the space station. The docking is expected Tuesday.
One of the crew's main objectives is to deliver the new Soyuz to the space station. The capsule not only ferries astronauts to the station, but also serves as its lifeboat in the event of an emergency. It is replaced every six months, the European Space Agency said.
Haignere, Afanasyev and Kozeyev will spend eight days on the space station conducting experiments, and are scheduled to return to Earth on Oct. 31 aboard the old Soyuz. They are to work alongside the space station's current crew, American Frank Culbertson and Russians Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin.
The crew has been aboard the space station since August.
Haignere was the first Frenchwoman in space when she spent two weeks on Russia's Mir space station in 1996, studying the effects of weightlessness on the human body.
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