Soyuz rocket bound for rendezvous with Space Station rolls out in Kazakhstan

The Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft was rolled out from its hangar on Monday (August 31) in preparation for a mission to the International Space Station later this week.

 

A team of three astronauts, Sergei Volkov of the Russian Federal Space Agency, Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency plan to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Wednesday (September 2) The trio will travel in a Soyuz spacecraft, which will rendezvous with the International Space Station and dock two days later to the Poisk module on September 4.

 

The rollout of the rocket was carried out by a vintage train that hauled the enormous rocket across the runway at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

 

Mission commander Volkov will be aboard the station for six months. His crewmates, Mogensen and Aimbetov will only be aboard for eight days, and will return to earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-16M, NASA said in a press release.

 

Volkov is scheduled to return in March 2016 with US flight engineer Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, who are on a one year mission to collect biomedical data for a potential human journey to Mars, NASA said.  — Reuters