New ISS crew will blast off for space Tuesday, watch it live
Two astronauts and one cosmonaut will blast off into space on Tuesday afternoon, arriving at the International Space Station about six hours later.
You can watch both the launch and the docking of the spacecraft live right here, thanks to streaming video provided by NASA.
NASA will start its live broadcast of the launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 12:30 p.m. (Pacific). The space agency will also be live streaming the docking of the spacecraft at the ISS. That broadcast will start at 6:30 p.m. (Pacific).
The three new members of the International Space Station team are Fyodor Yurchikhin, of the Russian Federal Space Agency, who has already logged 370 days in space over three space flights; Luca Parmitano, an Italian astronaut from the European Space Agency who will be making his first visit to space; and Karen Nyberg, a NASA astronaut from Minnesota, who will be going to space for the second time.
All three ISS members are scheduled to spend just under six months aboard the science lab in space, returning to Earth in November.
NASA produced a profile of Nyberg that talked about her love of sewing, quilting and long-distance running. She said she is also hoping to make time for drawing when she is in space.
“I used to mostly draw portraits and gave them to friends, but I haven’t done it in a long time. I am hoping I can get back to some of that while I am in space,” she told a NASA interviewer.
According to NASA, the Soyuz spacecraft carrying Yurchikhin, Parmitano and Nyberg to space will launch at 1:31 p.m. (Pacific) Tuesday and arrive at the space station at 7:16 p.m.
The trip will take about the same time as a plane ride from New York to Los Angeles.
