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Soyuz launches new crew members to International Space Station today

At 4:31 p.m. EDT today, three new crew members for the International Space Station will be launching into orbit aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule.

The three crew members currently on board the station, Pavel Vinogradov, Alexander Misurkin and Chris Cassidy, will be joined by Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, American astronaut Karen Nyberg and Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano. This six-person crew will be up in space together for the next four months, conducting science experiments and keeping the station running. After that, Vinogradov, Misurkin and Cassidy will pass the torch to the others and head back to Earth, while the newest members of the crew stay on until November.

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This will be the second crewed launch to feature the new four-orbit flight plan for the capsule, which will get the new 'spacelings' to their destination in under six hours, instead of the two-day trip it used to be, and they are scheduled to dock with the ISS at 10:17 p.m. ET.

You can watch the launch here, live, with coverage starting at 3:30 p.m. EDT and running until 5:00 p.m. EDT.

Live Video streaming by Ustream

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While Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield occupied his 'down-time' by wowing those of us here on Earth with pictures and videos from space, American astronaut Karen Nyberg has a different creative endeavour in mind for her second trip to the space station. She'll be knitting! She'll also, apparently, be carrying the tradition of tweeting from space, and you can follow her @AstroKarenN.

(Image courtesy: ESA/D. Detain)

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