Following a two-month delay, three astronauts lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome at 17:02 EDT today (22:02 BST, 03:02 local Baikonur time). The Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft carried the crew—NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yuri, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko—safely into space.
The crew will complete four orbits of the Earth before docking with the International Space Station (ISS) at 22:46 EDT (03:46 BST). Less than two hours later, at 00:25 EDT (05:25 BST), the Soyuz hatch will open and the crew will join NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, and Russian cosmonauts Mihkail Kornienko, as well as space station commander Gennady Padalka.
Kelly and Kornienko are four months into their unprecedented one-year mission. Right now researchers know a lot about how space affects the human body during the first six months in orbit, but little is known about the effects of space on the human body from 6-12 months. Kelly and Kornienko are conducting special physical and psychological experiments on themselves to better understand the effects of life in space and prepare us for the journey to Mars.
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