CIS: Russian capsule docks at space station
29 Mar 2009 12:24 AM
KOROLYOV, Russia, March 28 AP - A Soyuz capsule carrying a Russian cosmonaut, an American astronaut and US billionaire tourist Charles Simonyi has docked at the international space station.
Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka manually guided the capsule to a stop ahead of schedule on Saturday two days after blasting off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The crews of the capsule and the station will spend about three hours checking seals before opening the airlocks and meeting up face-to-face.
Padalka and US astronaut Michael Barratt will join the station's current crew.
Simonyi, meanwhile, returns to Earth on April 7 along with cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov and NASA astronaut Michael Fincke.
It's Simonyi's second trip as a paying customer to the space station.
