For veteran Nasa astronaut Dan Burbank, 50, it is his first voyage on board a Soyuz spacecraft.
The crew was told to take their places aboard the Soyuz spacecraft.
Early this morning, the Soyuz spacecraft containing the three new crewmembers for the International Space Station successfully docked, and the Space Station is now fully crewed.
But until the commercial astronaut taxis are ready to go, the nation will be dependent on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to launch its crews to low-Earth orbit.
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The 53-year-old Hadfield launched aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft in December and in March became the first Canadian to lead a spaceship as commander of the International Space Station.
He says that the Shenzhou VI is bigger than the Shenzhou V and represents an evolution beyond the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft technology on which China had based earlier ships.
She has made the headlines several times since returning to Russia, posing provocatively for a Russian men's magazine and turning up for the launch of a Soyuz spacecraft in Kazakhstan.
They'll eventually be joined by NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, Russian cosmonaut Fiyodor Yurchikhin and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, who are due to launch aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on May 28.
After Columbia broke apart with the loss of seven astronauts in February, NASA grounded the orbiter fleet, forcing the United States and its international partners to rely on smaller Russian Soyuz spacecraft to deliver cargo and crews to the space station.
They will be joined at the end of the month by three new crew members: NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, Russian cosmonaut Fiyodor Yurchikhin and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, who are due to launch aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on May 28.
The bigger deal is that this is the same rocket that launches Russia's Soyuz spacecraft, which carry crew to and from ISS. The rocket will be grounded until the root cause of the failure is determined and a fix is put into place.
They showed video of that launch an well as discussed their plans for creating human rated vehicles to create an alternative to Russian Soyuz spacecraft for human flights to the ISS. The United Launch Alliance has had 62 successful satellite launches since 2006 and it is working on a human-rated Atlas rocket launch by 2015-2016.
Rassvet will be used for cargo storage and as a fourth docking port for the Soyuz and Progress spacecraft's crew and cargo vehicles.
Early in the year, a Soyuz rocket carrying an unmanned Progress spacecraft suffered a launch failure, a failure that had some concerned that NASA might decide to leave the International Space Station without a crew.
Ariane will put in orbit the really big telecommunications satellites, Soyuz will loft the medium-class spacecraft, and Vega will take care of the compact scientific payloads.
The first of 22 OHB-SSTL spacecraft should launch next year, again on a Soyuz from French Guiana.
Analysts believe the Shenzhou spacecraft that China is developing is an enlarged copy of the Soviet-era workhorse - the Soyuz.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | China manned space mission nears
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