Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba of NASA and Alexander Misurkin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos left the Baikonur base in Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz capsule at 3.17 am today (local time, 23.17 pm Italian yesterday) bound for the International Space Station where AstroPaolo and his crewmates await them. The three, whose docking is scheduled at 18.40 pm (Italian time), will remain in the station for five and a half months. With the arrival of the three astronauts the crew of the Space Station will be complete again, with six members. Waiting for the three on board will be, in addition to the Italian Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency (ESA), the commander of Expedition 53 Randy Bresnik of NASA, and Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos.
