A Russian Soyuz spaceship carrying Malaysia's first astronaut and a two-man crew to the International Space Station (ISS) lifted off Wednesday from its launch pad in the Kazakh steppe.
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, the 16th crew of the long-term expedition of the ISS, with the first Malaysian astronaut Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, rode aloft aboard the Soyuz TMA-11 vessel, which blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5:22 pm Moscow time (1322 GMT).
The 35-year-old Shukor will stay in orbit for 11 days, and then return with the 15th ISS resident crew Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov. He will carry out a series of experiments for the European Space Agency (ESA) during his mission, ESA representative in Moscow Christian Feichtinger told reporters.
Shukor proved his ability to be Malaysia's first astronaut by winning a tough competition involving eleven thousand other aspirers.
Shukor and his standby Faiz bin Khaleed were very happy to learn in 2006 that the Malaysian government had entrusted them to represent their country in outer space. Shukor successfully completed a one-year training course in the Stellar City of Russia and passed all the preflight examinations with flying colors.
The ISS 16th crew -- Malenchenko and Whitson -- are to work in orbit for six months.
Malenchenko, the ISS-16 board engineer, who is 45 years old, will pilot the Soyuz. He is one of the most experienced and professional Russian cosmonauts. Malenchenko had worked on board the "Mir" orbital complex in 1994, performed a visiting mission to the ISS in 2000 and was a member of the 2003 long-term expedition, which was the first one after the "Columbia" shuttle disaster, after which the ISS crew was cut down to only two men.
Whitson, 47, is the first woman commander of a long-term expedition in the history of space exploration. In 1986 Whitson, who was then a member of the National Research Council, was invited to NASA and appointed to head the Mir-Shuttle Research Program in 1992. After years of training as a NASA astronaut, she was sent to the ISS in 2002 and stayed in orbit for 184 days.
The Soyuz TMA-11 docking with the ISS is planned for 6:50 pm Moscow time (1450 GMT) on Oct. 12.
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article