spacetoday.net: Soyuz docks with ISS

Posted: Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 7:15 AM ET (1115 GMT)
Soyuz TMA-12M approaching ISS (NASA)

A Soyuz spacecraft docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday evening after a software glitch delayed the docking by nearly 48 hours. The Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft docked with the station's Poisk module at 7:53 pm EDT (2253 GMT) Thursday, two days after launch from Baikonur. The spacecraft was originally scheduled to dock with the station just six hours after launch, but a software problem caused the spacecraft to abort a thruster burn needed to maneuver towards the station on that "fast track" approach, and mission controllers opted instead to use the more traditional, but longer, two-day approach. Russian officials said a "rare conjucture" of several issues caused the software failure that prevented the fast-track approach. The Soyuz brought to the ISS Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and American astronaut Steve Swanson, who join the three people currently on the station.