Chris Williams of NASA, together with his Soyuz MS-28 crewmates Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, both cosmonauts with Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos, lifted off for the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, beginning a planned eight-month expedition with a coincidental but well-timed celebration.
Despite the more exotic destination, Chris Williams' trip to the space station took far less time than his family's sea voyage, and was shorter than some of the interstate road trips expected across the country today. Having lifted off at 4:27 a.m. EST (0927 GMT or 2:27 p.m. local time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, he, Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev docked to the Rassvet module three hours later at 6:34 a.m. EST (1234 GMT).
Flying under the call sign "Gyrfalcon" — a bird of prey also depicted on their mission patch — the Soyuz MS-28 crew took to the skies atop a Soyuz 2.1a rocket decorated with the colorful drawings of pediatric cancer patients and the portraits of the first astronaut and cosmonauts to live aboard the ISS 25 years ago.
When they reached orbit, two small crocheted dolls signaled they were now in the weightless environment of outer space. Their zero-g indicators were a ginger cat named "Gizmo" that was gifted by one of the cosmonaut's families and a knitted cosmonaut made by students attending school in Gagarin, Russia (their town named after the first human in space, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin).
Source: www.space.com
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