WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

With the launch of a Soyuz rocket, cosmonaut Pavel V. Vinogradov, Russian Federal Space Agency Expedition 13 International Space Station commander, and astronaut Jeffrey N. Williams, NASA International Space Station science officer and flight engineer, began their mission on Thursday, March 30, 2006, 8:30 a.m. Kazakhstan time. They launched aboard a Soyuz TMA-8 rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Joining them for several days as a Soyuz crew member before returning home with the Expedition 12 crew was Marcos Pontes, a space flight participant representing the Brazilian Space Agency.