14 DAY TRIAL // Three astronauts are now on their way to the International Space Station. They represent the second half of Expedition 31, and will join the rest of their crew in orbit on Thursday, May 17 (GMT).
The Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft is scheduled to dock to the ISS Russian-built Poisk module, delivering NASA astronauts and ISS flight engineer Joseph Acaba, Russian Soyuz Commander and future Expedition 32 Commander, Gennady Padalka and RosCosmos flight engineer Sergei Revin.
The trio took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan at 9:01 am local time, on May 15. They were ferried to orbit atop an RSC Energia Soyuz-FG delivery system. The vehicle's launch was delayed several weeks after an original launch date was postponed due to technical errors.
The rest of the current ISS crew is made up of Expedition 31 Commander Oleg Kononenko (RosCosmos) and NASA flight engineer Don Pettit (NASA) and ESA astronaut André Kuipers. The three are scheduled to return to Earth on July 1.