BAIKONUR, April 4 (AVN) - The launch of the Soyuz-U medium class booster rocket carrying Soyuz-TM30 N204 spaceship piloted by Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Kaleri was made here 9.02 Moscow time (0602 GMT), a source in the main testing centre of the Strategic Missile Forces told the Military News Agency.
The launch of the rocket and insertion of the spaceship was normal. The docking of the spaceship with the Mir orbital station will take place early Thursday.
This is the 28th expedition to the Mir station, which has worked in unmanned mode since August 1999. The cosmonauts have to re-open the mothballed station, check the work of the onboard systems and eliminate air leakage from modules. Apart from that they will make some 30 experiments.
The launch was secured by the specialists of Rosaviakosmos together with the crews of space means of the Strategic Missile Forces. According to estimation of the Forces Commander Vladimir Yakovlev, everyone engaged worked on A plus.
The present launch of the Soyuz rocket was made from the legendary Gagarin starting point, Yakovlev stressed.