Expedition 41 crew portrait on the International Space Station. From left: ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst, Roscosmos cosmonauts Elena Serova, Maxim Suraev and Alexander Samokutyaev, and NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore.
The rear astronauts are dressed in the Sokol suits they will wear in their Soyuz spacecraft that will take them back to Earth on 9 November. Alexander, Max and Reid were making sure their suits still fit and have no leaks after having been stored on arrival at the Station almost six months ago.
Yelena, Alexander Samokutyaev and Barry will continue working in the weightless research centre, but they will not feel lonely for long.
ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, NASA astronaut Terry Virts and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov will join their colleagues on 24 November.
Alexander Gerst commented on this image: “The International Space Station Expedition 41 crew. My favourite selfie in space!”
The Soyuz TMA-14M failed to deploy one of its solar arrays en-route to the International Space Station. The power aboard the spacecraft was not interrupted. They docked about 6 hours after launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The new six-member Expedition 41 crew gathers in the Zvezda service module for a welcoming ceremony with family and friends in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Image Credit: NASA TV
Expedition 41 Commander Max Suraev of the Russian Federal Space Agency and Flight Engineers Reid Wiseman of NASA and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency, who arrived at the station in May, welcomed the new crew members aboard their orbital home.
Shortly after docking with the International Space Station, the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft's port solar array deployed successfully.
Earlier, the solar array had failed to deploy when the Soyuz reached orbit.
The image of the spacecraft's approach, taken from the ISS, clearly shows only one solar array has been deployed.
NASA and Roscosmos officials have confirmed that the array poses no long term issue to either standard operations at the station for Expedition 41-42, or for the landing of Barry Wilmore, Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova at the conclusion of their mission in March.
The new crew floated into their new home for a welcoming ceremony and congratulatory calls from family, friends and mission officials in Baikonur.
After the ceremony ended the new crew will underwent a mandatory safety orientation to familiarize themselves with escape paths and procedures and locations of safety gear.
A Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft will launch a new U.S.-Russian crew on a swift six-hour flight to the International Space Station today (Sept. 25), and you can watch the action in space live online.
A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft towers over its launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome ahead of a Sept. 26, 2014 local time launch (Sept. 25 Eastern Time). The mission will launch the new Expedition 41 crew to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore and cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova are poised to blast off for the space station at 4:25 p.m. EDT (2025 GMT) from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where it will be early Friday morning, Sept. 26, local time.
Serova will make a bit of space history with the launch, when she becomes Russia's fourth female cosmonaut to fly in space and the first Russian woman on the International Space Station.
You can watch the Soyuz launch webcast live on NASA TV, beginning at 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT).
NASA will also provide a live webcast of the Soyuz spacecraft's arrival at the space station at 9:45 p.m. EDT (0145 GMT), and another webcast at 11:30 p.m. EDT (0330 GMT) as the Soyuz crew joins the current station residents.
Wilmore, Samokutyaev and Serova will live and work aboard the International Space Station until March 2015, first as part of the outpost's Expedition 41 crew and later as the core of its Expedition 42 crew.
"[I'm] looking forward, actually, to all of it," Wilmore told reporters, adding that he was especially excited about the science and possible spacewalks during the flight. "It's all going to be great and fascinating."
The Soyuz launch today will mark the second spaceflight for Wilmore, 52, who is a captain in the U.S. Navy and hails from Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, but this flight will be his first long-duration trip to the space station.
He last visited the space station in 2011 as part of its Expedition 27/28 crew, and spent 164 days in space. Samokutyaev is from Penza, Russia, and is a lieutenant colonel in the Russian Air Force.
Cosmonaut Elena Serova, 38, is the only spaceflight rookie on the Soyuz crew launching today. Like Samokutyaev, she is a test cosmonaut, but Serova is not a member of the Russian military.
She was selected as a test engineer cosmonaut for Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) in 2006.
Serova counts Russia's female cosmonaut pioneers Valentina Tereshkova (the first woman in space), Svetlana Savitskaya (the first female spacewalker) and Elena Kodakova among her role models.
"When I was in school my first teacher told us about different achievements in cosmonautics, and I was very much impressed by those first flights, from Svetlana Savitskaya in particular, who was the first woman performing a spacewalk," Serova said in a NASA interview. "She was an amazing individual."
Today, Serova is the first female Russian cosmonaut to launch since Kodakova's final flight in 1997, aboard a NASA space shuttle.
Kodakova spent 169 days in space on Russia's space station Mir between October 1994 and March 1997, then revisited Mir for just over nine days in 1997 during the shuttle mission.
Serova said she is aware that her mission might serve as an inspiration to other Russian girls today, just as those earlier missions inspired her.
From the five space agencies that build and maintain the International Space Station to the mission control centres on Earth and the European (ESA), Japanese (JAXA), American (NASA) and Russian (ROCOSMOS) astronauts who fly to the space laboratory, international cooperation and knowhow is critical for a successful mission.
All four will leave Earth for the International Space Station this year. Alexander and Maxim are first up, on 28 May, while Samantha and Anton have their departure planned for 24 November. They will stay on the orbital outpost for around six months.
The ESA astronauts will support their Russian colleagues as 'third operators' if the cosmonauts venture outside the Space Station in their Orlan spacesuits.
Here they are preparing to train with the airlocks that separate astronauts in the Space Station from the harsh vacuum of outer space. Third operators help the spacewalkers put on and remove their spacesuits.
Alexander and Samantha are obvious choices to help the cosmonauts because they have both trained with the Orlan suit themselves.
All Station astronauts must speak Russian and English.
Alexander's Expedition 41 mission patch is visible below the European Astronaut Corps patch on his flight suit.
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