A Russian Soyuz capsule successfully delivered a trio of new residents to the international space station (ISS) March 28 on the first-ever “express” flight to the orbiting laboratory.
All previous Soyuz flights to the space station have taken at least two days. The Soyuz TMA-08M that lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:43 p.m. EDT docked with the ISS just under six hours later, marking the beginning of a new kind of mission that saves time and money, NASA officials have said.
“In my opinion, our mission is just the next little step on the way, on the way to the Moon, Mars, and I am very happy to do this step,” Russian crew member Aleksandr Misurkin said before the flight.
