Blastoff! Russian Air-force Space Cossack Escorts American and Japanese Test Pilots to ISS
Today, the Soyuz-FG rocket ship has taken off successfully from Baikonur Cosmodrome. The new crew of three members went to the International Space Station.
The commander is Russian, Anton Skaplerov. He is an Air Force colonel and a Cossack colonel of Moscow Oblast Cossack Region of Russian Cossack Union, Hero of Russia, and an Honorary Citizen of Sevastopol. He also served as a Chief Pilot Instructor of the Nebesnye Gusary Aerobatic Display Team of Russian Air Force. They piloted strike aircrafts. This is Shkaplerov's third space flight. In two previous ones, he spent 365 days in space, a whole year in total.
The flight engineer is an American military test pilot, Scott Tingle. He was involved in military activities in Afghanistan and Iraq as a member of the aircraft carrier flight crew. Tingle has 54 combat missions in his service record. His military rank is Commander which is roughly equivalent to captain II rank. This is his first space mission.
Also, a Japanese member joined the crew. He is military, too. Norishige Kanai is a surgeon. He's a specialist in underwater medicine and aikido. Kanai has undertaken a diving training program. He was preparing for the flight in NASA. There's a Japanese module of the ISS. It's called Kibo. Norishige Kanai learned to deal with it before the flight, on Earth. This is his first space mission.
For now, these three people are orbiting the Earth in Russian Soyuz-MS07 transport spacecraft. The day after tomorrow, in the morning, it will dock with the ISS.