Soyuz carries Sochi Winter Olympic torch to Intl Space Station ahead of first torch spacewalk

11/7/2013
ASSOCIATED PRESS
  • Kazakhstan-Russia-Space-Olympics-6

    The Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz TMA-11M space ship carrying new crew to the International Space Station, ISS, blasts off at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013. The rocket carrying the Olympic flame successfully blasted off Thursday from earth ahead of the Sochi 2014 Winter Games. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

    ASSOCIATED PRESS

    • MOSCOW — A Russian spacecraft carrying the Olympic torch and three astronauts has docked with the International Space Station.

    Video streamed by the U.S. space agency NASA reported a flawless docking today about six hours after the craft blasted off from Russia’s manned space facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

    The unlit torch for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi is to be taken on a spacewalk Saturday, then return to Earth on late Sunday with three departing space station astronauts.

    The arriving crew members today were Russia’s Mikhail Tyurin, American Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata of Japan.