spacetoday.net: Soyuz brings new crew to the ISS

Posted: Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 1:14 PM ET (1814 GMT)
Soyuz launch of TMA-19M (NASA)

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying three new International Space Station crew members arrived at the station Tuesday, six and a half hours after launch. A Soyuz rocket carrying the Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft lifted off on schedule at 6:03 a.m. EST (1103 GMT) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and entered orbit nine minutes later. The Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft docked with the Rassvet module at 12:33 pm EST (1733 GMT). Cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko guided the spacecraft in manually after a problem forced spacecraft controllers to abort the usual automated docking approach. Russian officials later said that a thruster problem aborted the automated docking. The Soyuz brought to the station Malenchenko, American astronaut Tim Kopra, and British astronaut Tim Peake.