Soyuz carrier rocket takes new crew to space station

MOSCOW REGION, March 30 (RIA Novosti) -- A Russian carrier rocket with the latest crew to the world's sole civilian orbital station on board blasted off successfully from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan at 6.30 a.m. Moscow time (2.30 a.m. GMT), Mission Control near Moscow said Wednesday.

The Russian Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft will take Russian astronaut Pavel Vinogradov, U.S. astronaut Jeffrey Williams, and Brazil's first man in space, Marcos Pontes, to the International Space Station.

A leading Brazilian TV channel that broadcast the footage of the launch in Latin America, said it marked Brazil's entrance in the elite club of space powers. Russian experts are currently helping Brazil build a space center in Alcantara, on Brazil's Atlantic coast, while the country is planning to design its own carrier rocket based on Russian space technologies to launch satellites into orbit.

The program of the new ISS mission includes a plasma crystal experiment, and technological, medical, and biological experiments. Astronauts will also make one spacewalk under the Russian program and two under the American one.

However, the new ISS crew will make something of a departure from the customary agenda of technical work and scientific experiment by indulging in a spot of golf, bringing back memories of Alan Shepherd's shots on the Moon in the early 1970s.

"This will be an attempt to tee off a ball into open space using an ordinary club," Pavel Vinogradov told journalists in the run-up to the launch. "I have never played golf myself, but have practiced with Jeffrey a couple of times."

Marcos Pontes will return to Earth after his short program with the outgoing ISS crew.

The ISS current crew, Russia's Valery Tokarev and William McArthur of the U.S., will round off their mission, which began in October 2005, and return to Earth on April 9, when the Soyuz undocks from the station at 0.15 a.m. Moscow time (8.15 p.m. GMT). The landing is expected in Kazakhstan, Central Asia, at 3.45 a.m. Moscow time (11.45 p.m. GMT).

Russia has borne the main burden of bringing crews and cargoes to the ISS in recent years, as the United States was forced to ground its shuttle fleet for two and half years after Columbia space shuttle crashed in February 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board. Flights only resumed in July last year, when Discovery completed a mission successfully.

According to a recent agreement signed between NASA and the Russian Space Agency, the U.S. is expected to pay over $21 million to Russia for flying Williams to the ISS. In 2005, Russia delivered foreign astronauts to the orbital station free of charge.

Although NASA had confirmed that 16 space shuttles would be launched before 2010, the head of Russia's space agency, Anatoly Perminov, earlier said that one of the three places on Russian Soyuz spacecraft would be permanently reserved for American astronauts.

"In addition to shuttles, U.S. astronauts will fly to the ISS aboard Russian Soyuz vehicles on a paid basis," he said.

Perminov also said the ISS would receive power supplies from the U.S. segment, adding that a relevant agreement would be signed between his agency and NASA within the next two months.

Nikolai Sevastyanov, the head and chief designer of Russia's leading space corporation, Energia, said in January that ISS crews would be increased to six members in 2007 and the number of pressurized modules on the ISS would be doubled to 12 by 2010.

In order to satisfy the growing demands of the future "international space port," four Soyuz spacecraft and two Progress cargo ships should be launched to the station in 2007.

Sevastyanov also said that the Clipper, a six-person reusable spacecraft similar to the U.S. shuttle, would replace the Soyuz and Progress carrier rockets, which have long been the workhorses of the Russian space program, in making regular flights to the ISS by 2015. It will be able to carry two professional astronauts and up to four passengers.

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