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Soyuz ferries three-man crew to the space station BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: March 31, 2006 Russian commander Pavel Vinogradov, NASA flight engineer Jeffrey Williams and Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes docked with the international space station late Friday, two days after blastoff Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Television shots from the Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft, relayed through NASA's communications satellite system, showed a slow but steady approach with a final bump at 11:19 p.m. EST as the capsule engaged the docking mechanism at the downward-facing nadir port on the Zarya propulsion module. Standing by to welcome the newcomers were Expedition 12 commander Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery Tokarev, winding up a six-month voyage aboard the international outpost. "This is the final stop for our train," one of the Soyuz fliers radioed. McArthur, Tokarev and Pontes are scheduled to return to Earth April 8 (U.S. time) aboard the Soyuz TMA-7 spacecraft that carried McArthur and Tokarev into orbit last year. Vinogradov and Williams make up the 13th full-time space station crew to be launched to the lab complex since November 2000. As of docking this evening, the station has been continuously manned for 1,976 days. Here are the numbers as of 11:19:34 p.m. EST: DAYS....HH...MM...SS...NOTES 2,688...21...39...07...ISS Mission Elapsed Time 1,975...18...58...34...ISS continuously manned 181.....23...24...41...ISS-12 Crew Time in Space 7.......19...26...32...Countdown to ISS-12 Landing 2.......01...49...22...ISS-13 Crew Time in Space "Thank you for a great launch and a great docking," Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA space station program manager, told his Russian counterparts after tonight's docking. "We look forward to a good expedition and a great year aboard the space station." If all goes well, the shuttle Discovery will blast off in July, restarting station assembly after a three-year hiatus in the wake of the 2003 Columbia disaster. Discovery will ferry a third station crew member to orbit - European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter - who will remain aboard the outpost when Discovery departs. In the near term, McArthur and Tokarev will spend the next week giving Vinogradov and Williams a detailed update on station operations while Pontes carries out his own experiment agenda. A joint crew news conference is on tap Monday.
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Full coverage of the Expedition 13 crew's launch aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to begin a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station.
External cameras on the International Space Station captured this incredible footage of the March 29 solar eclipse. The station flew through the eclipse over the Middle East as the moon passed in front of the sun and cast its shadow on the Earth.
A total solar eclipse occurred March 29. This video from Side, Turkey shows the period of totality when the moon slid between the Earth and Sun. The eclipse revealed the Sun's glowing outer halo of million-degree gas, called the solar corona.
In early March, NASA cancelled its Dawn mission built to orbit two of the solar system's largest asteroids using ion engine propulsion. Technical problems and cost overruns were blamed. But in this news conference from March 27, agency officials announce NASA's decision to reverse the cancellation and restart the mission.
Lockheed Martin holds this news conference in Houston on March 24 to announced that it is partnering with the State of Texas to locate the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) program office in Houston, as well as systems engineering, software development and qualification testing, if the corporation wins the NASA contract to build the next generation spacecraft for NASA.
As the Expedition 12 mission aboard the International Space Station winds down, officials managing the flight from Mission Control in Houston hold this retrospective briefing to talk about the highs and lows, the science, the spacewalks and everything in between.
International Space Station officials preview the next Expedition mission to the orbiting outpost, which is scheduled for launch March 29. The preview was given during a briefing March 22 from Johnson Space Center.
VIDEO:
SOYUZ DOCKS TO THE SPACE STATION 