A Russian rocket soared into the cosmos yesterday carrying the Sochi Olympic torch and three astronauts to the International Space Station ahead of the first-ever spacewalk for the symbol of peace.
Video streamed by the US space agency, NASA, reported a flawless docking with the space station about six hours after the craft blasted off from Russia’s manned space facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
The unlit torch for next year’s Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi is to be taken on a spacewalk tomorrow, then return to Earth on Monday with three departing space station astronauts.
Photo: EPA
The arriving crew members yesterday were Russia’s Mikhail Tyurin, the US’ Rick Mastracchio and Japan’s Koichi Wakata.
Once the newcomers enter the space station following a long hatch-opening process, the orbiting lab will have nine people aboard for the first time since 2009. Fyodor Yurchikhin of Russia, NASA’s Karen Nyberg and Italian Luca Parmitano are the crew scheduled to return to Earth with the torch via a Monday landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan.
The Olympic torch will not burn onboard the space outpost because lighting it would consume precious oxygen and pose a threat to the crew. The crew will carry the unlit torch around the station’s numerous modules before taking it out on a spacewalk.
The torch was taken aboard the US space shuttle Atlantis in 1996 for the Atlanta Summer Olympics, but this is the first it time it will be taken outside a spacecraft.
“It’s a great pleasure and responsibility getting to work with this symbol of peace,” Tyurin told journalists on Wednesday before the launch.
Russians Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazanskiy will take the torch out of the space station tomorrow, while American Michael Hopkins remains inside.
The torch will be used to light the Olympic flame at Sochi’s stadium on Feb. 7, marking the start of the Winter Games that run until Feb. 23.
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