The firing took place at 21 h 26. Jeff Williams, 58, a grandfather of three grandchildren, and Russian cosmonauts Oleg and Alexei Skripotchka Ovtchinine, took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Cap on the International Space Station.
“The Soyuz rocket took off successfully” , confirmed the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) said in a statement, adding that the docking of the spacecraft to the ISS was scheduled for 3 h 11 on Saturday.
A portrait of Yuri Gagarin the ship, launched to the ISS was threatened until at the last moment by strong winds, is decorated with a portrait of the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, in which Russia will celebrate April 12 fifty-five years of the legendary flight of 1961.
“We still have a lot of work, but it will be a day of celebration” , also assured Jeff Williams.
After this trip expected to last about six months, his third in the ISS, Williams has spent a total of 534 days above the Earth.
It will surpass well 520 cumulative days of his compatriot Scott Kelly, who returned 52 years, 1 st of March, a mission 340 days aboard the ISS, a continuous record time in the station where he made four trips in total. The absolute record remains held by Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, returned from his last mission in September 2015 after accumulated 879 days in space.
“A great privilege “ for Ovtchinine Alexei, 44, this is his first flight in space, while Oleg Skripotchka will make his second mission to the ISS.
They join three other crew members of the ISS – Russian Yuri Malenchenko, American Tim Kopra and Briton Timothy Peake – to continue the hundreds of biology experiments, biotechnology, physics and geophysics are underway.
“I feel really ready to return to the ISS (…) it is a great privilege” is said Jeff Williams, a native of Wisconsin (north), television Nasa.
This former pilot, who was part of the parachute team of the military academy at West Point, was particularly stayed in the ISS in 2006 when the station included only two modules.
An owl plush Since his arrival in Baikonur there are about two weeks, Jeff Williams has shared on Twitter several pictures and videos explaining the preparations for the launch of the Soyuz rocket and praising the “peaceful” Kazakh steppes.
“on launch day, there is some snow in the air and a lot of enthusiasm” , he wrote Friday on Twitter a few hours before take-off to the ISS.
Meanwhile, Alexei Ovtchinine told the press that he carried with him into space a pink stuffed owl, a toy of her daughter.
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