ROSCOSMOS - Soyuz TMA-16M Mission patch.
March 27, 2015
The Soyuz TMA-16M vehicle docked to the International Space Station at 9:33 p.m. EDT, over the western coast of Colombia.
Image above: There are now two Progress resupply space freighters and two Soyuz crew vehicles at the International Space Station.
Aboard the space station, Expedition 43 Commander Terry Virts of NASA, Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Samantha Cristoforetti of ESA (European Space Agency) will welcome Soyuz crew members Scott Kelly of NASA, and Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka of Roscosmos when the hatches between the two spacecraft are opened.
One-Year Crew Docks to ISS
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) joined their Expedition 43 crewmates when the hatches between the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft and the International Space Station opened at 11:33 p.m. EDT Friday, March 27. Kelly and Kornienko will spend about a year on the space station to better understand how the human body reacts and adapts to the harsh environment of space.
The Soyuz crew will join Expedition 43 Commander Terry Virts of NASA, Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos and Samantha Cristoforetti of ESA (European Space Agency). Virts, Shkaplerov and Cristoforetti have lived aboard the space station since November.
To join the online conversation about the International Space Station and the one-year mission on Twitter, follow the hashtag #YearinSpace.
For more information about the International Space Station and its crews, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Image, Video, Text, Credits: NASA / NASA TV.
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