New crew members launch for space station

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan, June 7 (UPI) -- NASA says three flight engineers launched in a Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Tuesday bound for the International Space Station.

The Expedition 128 crew members -- NASA astronaut Mike Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa -- blasted off at 4:12 p.m. EDT to begin their two-day journey to the space station, a NASA release said.

The Soyuz spacecraft, under the command of Volkov, will dock to the Russian module on the Earth-facing side of the station at 5:22 p.m. EDT Thursday, the agency said.

Fossum, Volkov and Furukawa will become the Expedition 29 crew when Commander Andrey Borisenko and Flight Engineers Alexander Samokutyaev and Ron Garan, who have been living and working on the station since April 6, return home in the Soyuz TMA-21 in September.

As the Soyuz TMA-02M crew prepared for liftoff Tuesday, Garan, Borisenko and Samokutyaev focused on station maintenance and scientific research, NASA said.