BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan — Three astronauts from the United States, Japan and Russia received the go-ahead Saturday for a Christmas-season rocket launch to the international space station from Russia’s remote space complex in southern Kazakhstan.
Their Soy uz TMA-17 spacecraft has been hoisted into place at the Baikonur center for a mission that will boost the number of crew at the orbital laboratory to five members.
NASA’s Timothy J.
Creamer, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov and Soichi Noguchi of Japan will blast off Monday at 3:52 a.m. local time in the first-ever launch of a Soyuz spaceship on a winter night.
Creamer, who is making his first voyage to space, said heplans to keep people back on Earth up-to-date via Twitter.
“I thought if I can give you the status of what I am doing, what we are hoping for, what we are looking forward to seeing, those would be good little teasers,” he saidat a news conference after a medical check on the three astronauts.
After liftoff, the Soyuz will travel for about two days before docking with the space station 220 miles above Earth.
Front Section, Pages 15 on 12/20/2009