A few hours ago the spacecraft Soyuz TMA- 12M, which lifted off a little over two days ago from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, has reached the International Space Station carrying three new crew members. The Soyuz was expected to use the fast trajectory regularly used but a sheduled thruster burn didn’t occur and that didn’t allow the spaceship to take the correct route. It was no longer possible to make a course correction so the Soyuz used the backup trajectory, normally used until a couple of years ago, which requires about two days of travel.

The three new crew members of the International Space Station, who complete the Expedition 39 crew, are:

Alexander Skvortsov. Born on May 6, 1966 at Schelkovo, in the Moscow region, in the then USSR, graduated from the Stavropol Air Force Pilot and Navigator School as a pilot-engineer in 1987 and at the Red Banner Military Air Defense Academy in 1997. Subsequently, he was selected as a cosmonaut candidate and started space training. He’s already been on the International Space Station as part of Expedition 23 and as commander of Expedition 24. He has already received a number of Russian awards including Hero of the Russian Federation honor.

Oleg Artemyev. Born on December 28, 1970 in Riga, in the then USSR and today Latvia, he graduated from the Tallinn Polytechnic School in 1990 and graduated from the Moscow Bauman Technical University in 1998 in low-temperature physics and technology. Until 2011 he worked at Energia Rocket Space Corporation. In 2003 he was selected as a cosmonaut candidate and started space training. In 2007, he participated in some test phases of the Mars-500 mission, an experiment that was intended to simulate a mission to Mars. It’s his first experience in space.

Steven Swanson. Born on December 3, 1960 in Syracuse, New York, USA, he earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from the University of Colorado in 1983, a master of applied science in computer systems from Florida Atlantic University in 1986 and a doctorate in computer science from Texas A&M University in 1998. After working as an engineer on phone systems, he joined NASA, where he received training as a mission specialist. In 2007 he was part of the crew of the Space Shuttle Atlantis in the STS-117 mission and in 2009 was part of the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery in the STS-119 mission together with the current commander of the International Space Station Koichi Wakata. He’s a Browncoat, which mean he’s a fan of the TV show “Firefly” and in 2007 brought to the Station the show and the movie “Serenity” that ends it.

According to the schedule, the new crew members will return to Earth in September 2014. On the International Space Station, they’ll carry out routine maintenance, a series of scientific experiments and will handle the arrival and departure of various spacecraft.

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