



Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and U.S. astronauts Douglas Wheelock , and Shannon Walker lifted off aboard the Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft.They began their journey into space at exactly 3:35:19 a.m. local time (1:3519 Moscow time) on June 16, 2010, or 5:35:19 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on June 15, 2010. The launch was called "a textbook launch" by a NASA spokesperson on NASA TV.The trio launched from a launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.In all, 100 launches, both manned (56) and unmanned (44), have occurred in support of the International Space Station from 1998 to now in June 2010.NASA provides a live look inside the Space Station at this website Including manned and unmanned missions, this will be the 100th launch supporting space station operations since assembly began in 1998.Page two continues.





Images of the work to prepare the spacecraft for spaceflight appears in the Onorbit.com website Soyuz TM-19 Spacecraft Prepared For Launch The three members of the Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft will become half of the six-member Expedition 24 crew of the International Space Station.The June 15, 2010 CBS News article 'Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft prepped for launch to space station' quotes Shannon Walker, one of the members of the TMA-19 and Expedition 24 teams.She states, as part of a NASA interview covered by CBS News, "Only a handful of us have been trained as the co-pilots on the Soyuz, and it's quite an extensive training process. I've spent the better part of the last three years over in Russia working with my Russian colleagues and my Russian instructors to learn how to be the co-pilot, so it's quite an endeavor."Wheelock adds comments on their time at the International Space Station: 'Our increment is going to be pretty busy. We'll see a fairly long gap for the next shuttle flight to arrive, and so we have a fair amount of EVAs, or spacewalks, we'll be doing as well. We have three Russian EVAs.' [CBS]'Fyodor and our Russian colleagues will go outside and be doing some configuration on the outside of the Russian segment and we'll also have two U.S. EVAs in August to do the very same thing, to outfit the station to be a little more independent of the heavy lift capability that the shuttle was bringing to the station." [CBS]Page three concludes.





Astronaut Wheelock also comments on the retirements of the space shuttle fleet.Wheelock stated, "It's actually bitter sweet to see the shuttle go. But it's really an exciting time as well, because we're also going to be the first increment to really go to full utilization of the space station as an orbiting laboratory.' [CBS]And, "All of our international partners, we've pulled together and done things in the engineering world that only 10 years ago seemed to be impossible. Did we think we'd get to this point sooner? Yes. Did we think we'd get to this point cheaper? Yes. ... We had big dreams and visions. I think that now we're just getting to that point where we're going to begin to really see the return on investment for us." [CBS]