Indian-American Sunita Williams, a record-setting astronaut who lived
and worked aboard the International Space Station for six months in
2006, and 2012 July 15 took off on her second space mission in a Russian spacecraft
from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
46-year-old Williams along with two flight engineers — Japan’s Akihiko
Hoshide and Yury Malenchenko of Russia — departed on a two-day voyage to
the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft
at around O8:10 IST, Russian news agency Ria Novosti reported.
Ms Williams, a flight engineer on the station’s Expedition 32 crew, will
take over as commander of Expedition 33 after reaching the space
station.
The Soyuz TMA is due to dock with the ISS’s Zvezda service module at 10:22 IST on July 17.
The crew will join the current ISS occupants — Russian cosmonauts
Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin and NASA astronaut Joe Acaba, who have
been in orbit since mid-May.
The new crew members are expected to conduct over 30 scientific missions during their stay on board the ISS.
Ms Williams and Mr Hoshide visited the ISS once each, travelling on
board a US space shuttle. It is their first flight experience with the
Soyuz spacecraft.
Ms Williams, whose father hailed from Gujarat, was selected as an
astronaut by NASA in 1998. She was assigned to the ISS as a member of
Expedition 14 and then joined Expedition 15.
She holds the record of the longest spaceflight (195 days) for female
space travellers. She received a Master’s degree from the Florida
Institute of Technology in 1995.
In the space, Ms Williams and her team of astronauts plan an orbital sporting event to mark the Summer Olympics in London.
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