14 DAY TRIAL // Officials with the Russian Federal Space Agency (RosCosmos) announced that the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft has been rolled out to its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan. The capsule sits atop a Russian-built Soyuz-FG medium-lift delivery system, which is scheduled to take it into low-Earth orbit on March 26 (March 25, US time).
The Soyuz TMA-12M will carry three astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) to complete the Expedition 39 crew in orbit. Commanding the new flight is RosCosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, and joining him are flight engineers Oleg Artemyev (RosCosmos) and Steven Swanson (NASA). The Expedition 39 crew is currently led by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.
The trio that will blast off into space on Wednesday will spend about six months there and will also make up the first half of the Expedition 40 crew aboard the space lab. Their Soyuz also carries a small amount of supplies and other cargo for the astronauts already in orbit. If all goes well, the capsule is expected to dock to the ISS a few hours after launch.
The image above was taken at sunrise yesterday, just before the Soyuz rocket and capsule were ferried on their dedicated rail tracks towards the launch pad. The delivery system will be fueled and tested extensively tomorrow so that RosCosmos engineers are sure that all systems are operational.