US, Italian and Russian astronauts are set to blast off into space Saturday in a launch coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, NASA’s Andrew Morgan and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency will travel to the International Space Station at 1628 GMT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The July 20 blast off comes on the same date that NASA’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in 1969, marking a defining moment in the so-called “space race” with the Soviet Union.
Of the trio launching from the Kazakh steppe, only 53-year-old Skvortsov was alive at the time of the Moon landing.
A veteran of two ISS missions, Skvortsov will be the flight commander for the six-hour journey from Baikonur to the ISS.
Morgan, 43, is flying for the first time……..read more
Source: Yahoo News
