Soyuz TMA-12 / ISS Expedition 17

The seventeenth full-time crew of the International Space Station lifts off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard Soyuz TMA-12. Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko take up residence on the ISS for 199 days. Arriving with them on the ISS for a ten-day stay is South Korean astronaut Yi So-Yeon, who returns to Earth aboard Soyuz TMA-11 with the Expedition 16 crew.