International Christmas mission to Space Station

William Atkins
Sunday, 20 December 2009 20:10

Science - Space

Three holiday travelers from the countries of the United States, Russia, and Japan are bringing the holiday spirit of cooperation and peace to the International Space Station as they ready themselves for their launch on Monday, December, 21, 2009.


The three space travelers will lift-off inside their Soyuz TMA-17 rocket from launch pad LC-1/5 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in southern Kazakhstan (central Asia).

The launch is set for 3:52 a.m. local time Monday, December 21, 2009 (4:52 p.m. Eastern Standard Time [EST] Sunday, December 20, 2009). The Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) of the launch is 2152.

The Soyuz TMA-17 mission is the 104th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft.

The three new members of the ISS Expedition 22 crew of the Space Station are Russian cosmonaut and ISS Expedition 22 flight engineer Oleg Kotov (Russian space agency Russian Federal Space Agency, Rosmosmos); U.S. astronaut and ISS Expedition flight engineer Timothy J. Creamer (U.S. space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA); and Japanese astronaut and ISS Expedition flight engineer Soichi Noguchi (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA).

They will be launching on a cold December night in central Asia for their mission's two-day trip to the International Space Station (ISS).

Kotov, who is the Soyuz TMA-17 commander, will also serve as the commander of the next Expedition crew, ISS Expedition 23.

Page two continues with Holiday Greetings from the crew of the Space Station.