Three astronauts are on their way to the International Space Station
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The International Space Station will soon have three new residents.
The Soyuz TMA-17M rocket launched at 5:02 p.m. EDT Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The three astronauts onboard — NASA’s Kjell Lindgren, Oled Kononenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency, and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency — are now “safely in orbit,’’ according to NASA. They will remain on the ISS until December.
It is the first trip to space for Lindgren and Yui. After the successful launch, the trio shared a triumphant hand shake.
They are expected to begin docking at the ISS at about 10:45 p.m. Wednesday, but NASA will begin coverage of the docking at 10 p.m. (watch here). The three current residents of the ISS will welcome the newbies with a hatch opening and welcome ceremony at 11:45 p.m., which NASA also will broadcast.
NASA astronaut and ISS resident Scott Kelly took to Twitter to express his excitement for the new arrivals:
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Kelly is on a year-long mission with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko focused on seven categories of research.
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