Astronauts take Sochi Olympic torch to space station

Moscow (AFP) - An international trio of astronauts arrived Thursday at the International Space Station with an unlit Olympic torch that will for the first time be taken on a spacewalk to mark the Sochi Winter Games.

The crew blasted off Thursday morning from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in a Soyuz-TMA capsule powered by a Soyuz-FG rocket, both emblazoned with symbols of the Sochi games as well as the Olympic rings.

NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio, Russia's Mikhail Tyurin and Japan's Koichi Wakata shared the capsule with the same torch that Russia will use to light the cauldron at its first post-Soviet Olympic Games in Sochi next year.

The capsule then docked with the ISS around six hours later, after four orbits of the Earth.

The newly arrived astronauts joined six incumbent crew: station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of Russia and flight engineers Karen Nyberg and Mike Hopkins of NASA, Italy's Luca Parmitano and Russians Sergei Ryazansky and Oleg Kotov.

It is the first time since 2009 that there have been nine astronauts on board instead of the usual six.

Cosmonaut Tyurin was the first to float through the open hatch into the ISS, brandishing the torch and grinning broadly. He shook hands with cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and gave him the torch.

Minutes later, the nine astronauts crowded together to make a videoconference call to family members. Tyurin let the angular silver torch twirl in weightlessness while they spoke.

In an unprecedented move, two cosmonauts who are already on board the ISS, Kotov and Ryazansky, are set to take the torch on a space walk from 1430 GMT on Saturday aimed at promoting the Sochi Games.

Russian officials have made it clear that the torch will remain unlit at all times for safety reasons.

Go here to see the original:
Astronauts take Sochi Olympic torch to space station