While we await the Space Shuttle Discovery’s launch on Monday, there is another important launch beforehand. The International Space Station needs some additional crew members. More specifically, 3 Expedition 23 flight engineers will be joining the other 3 members currently residing on the ISS. The crew consists of NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson, cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko. The launch is scheduled for 12:04 AM EDT Friday. You can watch it live on NASA TV starting at 11:15 PM EDT Thursday. It will be a two day journey and the crew will arrive less than a day before the STS-131 launch. The Soyuz rocket is reminiscent of the early rockets, but obviously much smaller than the Apollo Saturn vehicles. Still, it is quite a sight though. Below you can see the Soyuz rocket being transported to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. (Photo credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi)
Pictured below is the crew. (Photo Credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov)
