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Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft carrying the next expedition crew launched to the ISS

December 15, 2015

Today, December 15, transportation spacecraft Soyuz TMA-19M with its crew was successfully put into a low Earth orbit and is headed for the International Space Station (ISS).

Launch vehicle Soyuz-FG with the manned spacecraft Soyuz TMA-19M was launched from Area 1 ('Gagarin's launch pad') of the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 14:03:09 Moscow Time. The spacecraft separated from the third stage of the launch vehicle normally at the expected time.

Launched onboard Soyuz TMA-19M is the international crew of the next expedition ISS-46/47 consisting of a Roscosmos cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko (the spacecraft commander), a NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra and an ESA astronaut Timothy Peake.

The Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft will also deliver to the ISS about 190 kg of various cargoes, including crew support supplies, onboard documentation packages, utilization payloads, accessories for video and photographic equipment, hardware and data storage media for science experiments, personal kits for the crew.

'The launch vehicle Soyuz-FG performed flawlessly - the manned spacecraft Soyuz TMA-19M is in orbit, and in six hours time we expect it to dock. I congratulate all the participants in this work. More than a thousand people took part in the activities at Baikonur. I'm grateful to the companies in the industry that did a good job, prepared the launch vehicle and spacecraft for today's welcome event", - said Director General of the State Corporation Roskosmos Igor Komarov to the journalists after the spacecraft was put into orbit.

The spacecraft will rendezvous with the station using the 'quick' four-orbit rendezvous profile, the docking with the docking port on the Mini Research Module Rassvet (MRM1) is scheduled for December 15 (Tuesday) at 20:24:09 Moscow Time, during the 5th orbit of the flight.

During expedition ISS-46/47 the crew of Soyuz TMA-19M will jointly work with crews of ISS-43/44/45/46 and ISS-47/48, work with Russian cargo transportation spacecraft Progress M-M and Progress MS, manned spacecraft Soyuz TMA-18M and Soyuz TMA-20M, US cargo spacecraft Dragon and Cygnus, perform one spacewalk under the program of the ISS Russian Segment, run a program of applied science research and experiments, hold public relations events, take still pictures and videos, and perform symbolic activities. Altogether the expedition crewmembers will work in orbit for 173 days.

The manned transportation spacecraft of the new series Soyuz TMA-M developed and built by RSC Energia is an upgraded version of the Soyuz TMA spacecraft. It is equipped with new devices for the motion control and navigation system and an improved onboard measurement system. All the devices are built around state-of-the-art electronic components and run the latest software. The upgrade made it possible to reduce the mass of the onboard equipment and thus enhance the capability to deliver payload to orbit.

The spacecraft is designed to deliver the crews of up to three and their accompanying cargoes to the International Space Station (ISS), as well as to return them to Earth. When attached to the ISS, Soyuz TMA-M serves as a crew rescue vehicle and is kept permanently ready for emergency crew return to Earth.

JSC RSC Energia: the leader in the rocket and space industry, and the prime contractor for manned space systems. The Corporation conducts work on the development of unmanned space and rocket systems (launch vehicles and orbital transfer vehicles), and high-technology systems for various non-space applications. Since August 2014, the Corporation is headed by Vladimir Lvovich Solntsev.