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Astronauts Begin Year in Orbit as Soyuz Docks With ISS

A Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka launched at 1.42am local time on Saturday, March 28, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Kornienko and Kelly will spend 342 days aboard the orbiting laboratory to carry out research on the effects of a prolonged period of weightlessness on the human body, while Padalka will stay for six months.

The Soyuz capsule docked with the International Space Station about eight hours after the launch. This video shows the astronauts boarding the ISS and being greeted by Commander Terry Virts of NASA and Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos and Samantha Cristoforetti of the ESA. Credit: AstroTerry