Soyuz booster rolls to launch pad

Adorned with colorful artwork celebrating the 2014 Olympic Games, a Soyuz rocket rode a specially-built railroad car to a launch pad in Kazakhstan on Tuesday in one of the final steps before liftoff of a new three-man crew for the International Space Station.

Technicians propped up the Soyuz rocket on the launch pad after its short sunrise rail journey.

Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, NASA flight engineer Rick Mastracchio and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata will climb inside the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule atop the Soyuz rocket for launch at 0414 GMT Thursday (11:14 p.m. EST). Docking with the space station is set for 1031 GMT (5:31 a.m. EST), just six hours after launch.

Tyurin, Mastracchio and Wakata will join an international crew of six astronauts already on the space station, temporarily boosting the crew size to nine people.

The international outpost has not hosted so many people at once since the final space shuttle mission in July 2011.

See our Mission Status Center for the latest news on the mission.

Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls