Latest Space Mission 2014: 'Baby Steps' To Explore Solar System
Three space explorers took the "initial baby steps" in exploring the solar system with the launch and subsequent arrival of a Russian Soyuz capsule at the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday night.
The statement came from incoming station commander Terry Virts from U.S. space agency NASA during a pre-launch press conference in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
"I think that 100 years from now, 500 years from now, people will look back on this as the initial baby steps that we took going into the solar system," Virts said.
"In the same way that we look back on Columbus and the other explorers 500 years ago, this is the way people will look at this time in history," he added.
Joining Virts in the space mission are Soyuz commander Anton Shkaplerov from the Russian Federal Space Agency and first-time Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency.
Less than six hours after a Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazahkstan, the capsule berthed on the Russian side of the station about 260 miles over the central Pacific Ocean, said NASA mission commentator Kyle Herring from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The three new ISS crew replaces Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, European astronaut Alexander Gerst and NASA's Reid Wiseman who returned home last Nov. 9 after five-and-a-half months in orbit.
The newly arrived space explorers join one U.S. astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts who arrived at the ISS last September. The three already at the station will return in March 2015 while the new arrivals will get back in May.
The new crew faces a hectic schedule during their six months' stay in the space station, including at least three planned spacewalks to prepare the station for a new fleet of U.S. commercial space taxis due to begin flying astronauts to the station in late 2017.
The crew will also conduct studies on the genetic makeup of roundworms, and the effect of aerosols in the atmosphere and liquid metals, according to NASA.
The worms will be used to study epigenetics, a relatively young branch of science which explores the changes in our genetic activity without changing our genetic code.
The crew will grow four generations of worms to see whether the effects of microgravity are passed down through the worms' family.
The aerosols will be studied through a new instrument that will be delivered by a SpaceX mission next month. The study will explore how pollutants, which can affect climate, aeroplanes and human health, are distributed through the atmosphere.
The three new ISS visitors brought with them 15 cans of sturgeon caviar, apples, oranges, lemons and black tea, according to Russian state news agency Tass.
The caviar will be part of the team's feast to celebrate New Year, the agency said.
They also brought along a specially designed coffee machine which can work in space.
The ISS, owned and operated by 15 nations, is a $100-billion orbiting research laboratory where experiments on life science, materials research, technology development and other fields are conducted using the unique microgravity environment and vantage point of space.
The ISS has continuously been occupied by crew from Russia, the U.S. and other nations since November 2000. It has received more than 200 spacemen since then and is expected to keep receiving more of them until 2024.