ROSCOSMOS - Soyuz TMA-05M Mission patch.
July 17, 2012
NASA astronaut Suni Williams, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Aki Hoshide and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko joined their Expedition 32 crewmates at the International Space Station early Tuesday.
Image above: The Soyuz TMA-05M carrying Expedition 32 crew members Yuri Malenchenko, Sunita Williams and Akihiko Hoshide approaches the International Space Station. Credit: NASA TV.
The docking occurs 37 years to the day after the first ever docking of American and Russian spacecraft during the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission.
New Expedition 32 Trio Arrives at Station
Video above: Expedition 32 Flight Engineers Suni Williams, Yuri Malenchenko and Aki Hoshide have arrived at the International Space Station after two days in orbit. The new trio docked its Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft to the Rassvet module at 12:51 a.m. EDT Tuesday.
The hatches between the Soyuz and the Rassvet module opened at 3:23 a.m. and Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineers Joe Acaba and Sergei Revin greeted their new crewmates. The six-member crew conducted a welcoming ceremony with family and mission officials then participated in a safety briefing.
Hatches Open, Expedition 32 Expands to Six
Video above: The six-member Expedition 32 crew gathers in the Zvezda service module for a welcoming ceremony. Credit: NASA TV.
Williams, Malenchenko and Hoshide launched at 10:40 p.m. EDT Saturday (8:40 a.m. Kazakhstan time on Sunday) from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. They are expected to live and work aboard the orbital laboratory until November.
The launch and docking of Expedition 32 coincides with the 37th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first docking of an American spacecraft with a Russian spacecraft. An Apollo spacecraft from Kennedy Space Center and a Soyuz 7K-TM vehicle from Baikonur Cosmodrome launched on July 15, 1975, then docked two days later.
International Space Station (ISS)
American astronauts Commander Thomas Stafford, Command Module Pilot Vance Brand and Docking Module Pilot Donald Slayton were aboard the Apollo spacecraft. Russian cosmonauts Commander Alexei Leonov and Flight Engineer Valeri Kubasov were aboard the Soyuz 7K-TM. Stafford and Leonov shook hands after the hatches opened, the first time international crew members greeted each other in space.
Read more about Expedition 32: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition32/index.html
Expedition 32 Mission Summary (4.7 MB PDF): http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/668459main_exp32_summary.pdf
For more information about the International Space Station (ISS), visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Images, Videos, Text, Credits: ROSCOSMOS / ROSCOMOS TV / NASA / NASA TV.
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