Olympic Torch Headed for Russia Taken to Space
Winter Olympics set to start early next year
Three new crew members representing the United States, Russia and Japan have flown to the International Space Station with the Olympic torch that will be used to light the Olympic flame at Fisht Stadium in Sochi, Russia, to mark the start of the 2014 Winter Games.
The Soyuz capsule carrying the spacecraft Commander Mikhail Tyurin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), NASA Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio, and Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:14 a.m. Thursday, or 11:14 p.m. EST Wednesday.