Docked! Soyuz Takes Shortcut to Space Station

A Russian Soyuz capsule arrived in record time at the International Space Station on Thursday, shaving the standard two-day flight down to less than six hours.

The shortcut required some very precisely timed steering maneuvers, all of which occurred without problems. That positioned NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and his two Russian crewmates, Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin, to reach the station at 10:28 p.m. EDT, just five hours and 45 minutes after liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

“Everything is going good,” Vinogradov radioed to flight controllers as the Soyuz capsule neared the station. Read more...