Spaceflight Now | Breaking News | Tourist launched aboard replacement station lifeboat

Tourist launched aboard replacement station lifeboat
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: April 25, 2002

The three-man crew arrives at the launch pad to board Soyuz. Photo: Energia

A Russian rocket carrying South African space tourist Mark Shuttleworth, Italian astronaut Roberto Vittori and commander Yuri Gidzenko blasted off and streaked into orbit today on a flight to deliver a fresh Soyuz lifeboat to the international space station.

Liftoff from Yuri Gagarin's launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodome in Kazakstan occurred on time at 2:27 a.m. EDT. Video from inside the spacecraft during ascent showed Shuttleworth and his crewmates smiling and waving at the cockpit camera as they rocketed away. Eight-and-a-half minutes after launch, the Soyuz spacecraft slipped into orbit and a few moments later, its main antennas and solar arrays deployed as planned. There were no problems of any significance.

If all goes well, Gidzenko will guide the Soyuz spacecraft to a docking at an Earth-facing port on the space station's Zarya module around 4 a.m. Saturday. A detailed mission overview is available here.

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