American, Russian join crew aboard space station
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan — A Soyuz space capsule safely delivered an American astronaut making his first space flight and a veteran Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station on Thursday.
NASA’s Jack Fischer and Russia’s Fyodor Yurchikhin lifted off from the Russialeased launch facility in Kazakhstan at 1:13 p.m. Thursday (3:13 a.m. EDT). They reached orbit about nine minutes later, a moment illustrated when a stuffed white dog toy hanging from a string in the capsule began to float.
About six hours later, they docked at the orbiting outpost.
NASA’s Peggy Whitson, the crew’s commander, Russia’s Oleg Novitskiy and France’s Thomas Pesquet greeted Fischer and Yurchikhin with cheers and hugs. They floated into the station two hours after the docking.
Yurchikhin, making his fifth space flight, and Fischer talked to family and friends who watched from the Baikonur facility.
The two American astronauts are scheduled to speak with President Donald Trump on Monday. On that day, Whitson, who on a previous mission became the first woman to command the International Space Station, will break the U.S. astronaut record for the most cumulative time in space. Jeffrey Williams currently holds the record of 534 days.
At 57, Whitson also is the oldest woman to have been in space. She is scheduled to return to Earth in September.
In another space-related development Thursday, China launched its first unmanned cargo spacecraft on a mission to dock with the country’s space station, marking further progress in the ambitious Chinese space program.
The Tianzhou 1 blasted off from China’s newest spacecraft launch site, Wenchang, on the island province of Hainan.
Minutes later, as the spacecraft cleared the atmosphere, the mission was declared a success by administrators at ground control on the outskirts of Beijing.
It is programmed to conduct scientific experiments after reaching the nowcrewless Tiangong 2, China’s second space station.