The first Danish astronaut lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome
Moscow, Russia: The first Danish astronaut has entered the history of space exploring as Andreas Mogensen along with Sergey Volkov (Russian) and Aidyn Aimbetov (Kazakh) as they lifted off in the 500th Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome today.
The spacecraft will deliver three new crew members to the International Space Station.
All three cosmonauts are onboard as the 500th manned rocket launched from the same pad that Yuri Gagarin’s original Soyuz blasted off from on April 12, 1961.
Russian RT television reported that the spacecraft will take a longer two-day route and head toward the ISS for a radar-guided rendezvous and docking on Friday September 4, at 7:42am GMT. Nine people will share the space station during the week-long crew rotation.
“The flight is unusual in that the two flight engineers on board the Soyuz TMA-18M will not stay on the ISS for an extended mission, returning to Earth on September 11. The docking of the Soyuz TMA-18M will mark the conclusion of Expedition 44 and the beginning of Expedition 45”, RT concluded.
There have been 499 manned launches since Yury Gagarin first went into space. He only spent a few hours there, while modern missions last months. To make this possible, the International Space Station was built in orbit and construction began in 1998.
