The 32nd crew of the space station, which includes the American astronaut Sonny Williams, the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Melanchenko and the Japanese space agency's Aki Hoshida, were launched this morning in the Soyuz TMA-05 spacecraft at 05:40 Israel time (08:40 Kazakhstan time).
The three are on their way to the International Space Station where they will join crew chief Gennady Padalka, and flight engineers Joe Abaka and Sergey Ravin. They are scheduled to dock in the space station's Rasvet module on Tuesday morning.
The launch and docking of the 32nd crew coincidentally coincides with the 37th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz mission, the first docking mission of an American spacecraft with a Russian spacecraft. The Apollo spacecraft launched from the Kennedy Space Center and the Soyuz 7K-TM spacecraft were launched on July 15, 1975 and the two spacecraft docked with each other two days later.
The commander of the Soyuz on that mission was one of the Soviet Union's legendary astronauts Alexey Leonov. And the Apollo commander was Thomas Stafford, and two other astronauts from each side participated in the operation. Stafford and Leonov shook hands after the doors opened, marking the first time international crews had greeted each other in space.
