A Russian Soyuz spacecraft with three crew on board successfully docked at the International Space Station Saturday after blasting off from Kazakhstan, NASA said, launching a year-long mission on the orbiting outpost. <\/p>\n
The Soyuz-TMA16M spacecraft's crew included a US astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut who will be the first to spend an entire year on the ISS. <\/p>\n
The successful docking occurred after the Soyuz took off without a glitch from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 22:42 pm (1942 GMT) Friday, Russian space agency officials said earlier. <\/p>\n
The hatch opened about two hours later at 0333 GMT, once the pressure between the two space vessels had equalised. <\/p>\n
The three exchanged enthusiastic hugs with crew members already on board the ISS after the hatch opened. <\/p>\n
NASA flight engineer Scott Kelly and Russian Mikhail Kornienko will together spend a total of 342 days aboard the ISS, while the third crew member, Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, will spend the usual period of six months. <\/p>\n
Kelly, 51, and 54-year-old Kornienko will take part in the extended mission to test the effects of long-term space missions on the human body. <\/p>\n
The trip marks the longest amount of time that two people will live continuously at the ISS, though a handful of Russian cosmonauts spent a year to 14 months at the Russian space station Mir in the 1990s. <\/p>\n
\"This is the first time we're doing it as an international partnership, which I think is one of the great success stories of the International Space Station,\" Kelly said at a news conference in Baikonur ahead of the launch. <\/p>\n
He said the experiment could prove vital towards planning future international missions, including to Mars. <\/p>\n
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Read more from the original source: A Russian Soyuz spacecraft with three crew on board successfully docked at the International Space Station Saturday after blasting off from Kazakhstan, NASA said, launching a year-long mission on the orbiting outpost. The Soyuz-TMA16M spacecraft's crew included a US astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut who will be the first to spend an entire year on the ISS Continue reading
\nSoyuz spacecraft docks at ISS for year-long mission<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"