ROSCOSMOS - Soyuz TMA-19M Mission patch.
Dec. 15, 2015
New Crew Docks to the Space Station
Video above: After launching earlier in the day on Dec. 15 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Expedition 46-47 Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), NASA Flight Engineer Tim Kopra and Flight Engineer Tim Peake of the European Space Agency arrived at the International Space Station Dec. 15 following a four-orbit, six-hour rendezvous.
ESA astronaut Tim Peake, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and Russian cosmonaut commander Yuri Malenchenko arrived at the International Space Station today, six hours after their launch at 11:03 GMT.
The Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft docked with the Space Station at 17:33 GMT. The astronauts opened the hatch at 19:58 GMT after checking the connection between the seven-tonne Soyuz and the 400‑tonne Station was airtight.
Tim Peake arrives at Space Station
They were welcomed aboard by Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Korniyenko and Sergei Volkov, and NASA astronaut Scott Kelly.
New Crew Welcomed to the Space Station.
This marks the start of Tim’s six-month Principia mission and the culmination of six years of training since being selected for the European astronaut corps in 2009.
A large educational programme is set to inspire and involve children and students with computer coding, fitness regimes and lessons from space with Tim as the instructor.
Soyuz TMA-19M launch
Tim is the third ESA astronaut to stay on the orbiting research complex this year alone. Samantha Cristoforetti ended her record-breaking 199-day mission in June, while Andreas Mogensen completed a busy 10-day tour in September.
Principia will see Tim working on dozens of experiments for researchers on Earth as he orbits our planet at 28 800 km/h. Highlights of his scientific roster include growing crystals and blood vessels in space, simulating atomic structures and charting areas in the brain as they adapt to stressful situations.
Yuri, Tim and Tim have a few days to settle in and get used to working in weightlessness before starting their 40-hour work weeks running experiments and maintaining the Station.
Tim Peake waving goodbye before launch
They are in good company: Scott Kelly and Mikhail Korniyenko have been living on the Station for more than 300 days since March as part of their marathon stay to probe how the human body adapts to longer missions.
Kopra, Malenchenko and Peake will remain aboard the station until early June 2016. Kelly and Kornienko will return to Earth at the conclusion of their one-year mission on March 1, 2016, along with Volkov. The pair will have spent 340 consecutive days living and working in space to advance understanding of the medical, psychological and biomedical challenges astronauts face during long duration spaceflight, in addition to developing countermeasures to reverse those effects.
Follow Tim and Principia via http://timpeake.esa.int/
Media have the opportunity to speak to Tim live on 18 December from the European Astronaut Centre, the home base of all ESA astronauts. The event will be streamed at http://www.livestream.com/ESA; questions can be posed only by journalists attending in person.
Related links:
Principia mission: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Principia
Principia in UK: https://principia.org.uk/
NASA One-year mission: http://www.nasa.gov/content/one-year-crew
To learn more about the International Space Station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station
Images, Videos, Text, Credits: ESA/Stephane Corvaja/NASA/NASA TV.
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