14 DAY TRIAL // In this image, taken on Sunday, March 23, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, the gantry arms on a launch pad are seen as they begin to close around a Soyuz-FG medium-lift delivery system. This rocket was used on Wednesday, March 26 (local time) to launch the second half of the International Space Station's (ISS) Expedition 39 crew into low-Earth orbit.
Launch occurred at 3:17 am local time on March 26 (5:17 pm EDT / 2117 GMT on Tuesday, March 25). Flying inside the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft are flight Commander Alexander Skvortsov (RosCosmos) and flight engineers Steve Swanson (NASA) and Oleg Artemyev (RosCosmos). The trio was originally supposed to reach the ISS within 6 hours of launch.
Unfortunately, an error with a pre-programmed orbital burn did not allow Soyuz TMA-12M to properly control its orbital insertion procedure, so the spacecraft was unable to take the desired shortcut. The astronaut trio will now have to spend two days in low-Earth orbit, catching up to the station. Once this happens, the capsule will dock to the Russian-built Poisk module.
The second half of Expedition 39 is scheduled to remain in space until mid-September. On May 14, the astronauts already on the ISS will depart the station, and will be replaced by the second part of Expedition 40 less than two weeks later. The upcoming launch, featuring the Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft, will take place on May 25.