For the first time, an Olympic beacon will be taken on a spacewalk by astronauts after Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft carrying an unlit torch for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi successfully docked to the ISS on Thursday.
The Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft carried the Olympic torch as part of the efforts to showcase next year’s games in Russia.
On Saturday, two Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky, who are already on the orbiting station, will take the torch on a historic first spacewalk.
However, for safety reasons, the torch will not be lit.
“Manned transport spacecraft ‘Soyuz TMA-11’ has successfully docked with the International Space Station,” the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, said.
Three crew members on board a Russian Soyuz, representing the US, Russia and Japan, launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
"We'd like to showcase our Olympic torch in space. We will try to
do it in a beautiful manner," Kotov said earlier.
The three person crew of Soyuz arrived at the ISS just six hours
and 14 minutes after being launched, using a fast track rendezvous.
NASA Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio, Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin
of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Flight Engineer
Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency took with
them the Olympic torch that will be used to light the Olympic flame
at Fisht Stadium in Sochi, Russia, to mark the start of the 2014 Winter Games.
The arrival of Mastracchio, Tyurin and Wakata brings the station's
crew complement to nine. This is the first time since October 2009
that nine people have served together aboard the space station, NASA said.
The crew will return to its normal complement of six on November
10, when Expedition 37 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, Karen Nyberg
of NASA, and luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency return to Earth.
After their departure, Expedition 38 will begin with Kotov of Roscosmos,
who already is aboard, at the helm.
Some of the cargo flown aboard the Soyuz will be used in ongoing
or planned research investigations aboard the orbiting laboratory,
the US space agency said.
The cargo includes questionnaires for a space headaches investigation
that crew members will complete to provide in-flight data about the
prevalence and characteristics of headaches they may experience in
micro-gravity.
Other cargo includes hardware for an investigation looking at the
impact of space travel on the immune system and on human microbiomes,
which are microbes living in and on the human body.
Another delivery will contribute to an investigation known as Sarcolab,
which studies the skeletal muscle fibres of station crew members.
The torch returning home with Expedition 37 will light the flame
at the opening of the games. PTI SAR AKJ SAR
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