International crew launched to the ISS from Baikonur – RIA Novosti

Baikonur (Kazakhstan), September 26 – RIA Novosti, Alexander Kovalev. Launch vehicle “Soyuz-FG” with manned spacecraft “Soyuz TMA-14M”, carrying the new crew, started from Baikonur to the International Space Station (ISS), the correspondent of RIA Novosti with the first “Gagarin” launching pad.

In orbit, the first time after a seventeen-year period, the male hegemony flies Russian woman cosmonaut Yelena Serova. Her company in the capsule of the “Union” are Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Samokutyayev and NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore.

Elena Serova – the fourth woman Russian woman, who happen to be in space. The first was in 1963, Major General Valentina Tereshkova. She – the only woman in the world, committed a single flight. Then twice flew into orbit Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982 and 1984. Then twice – in 1994 and 1997 – managed to make flights Russian woman Elena Kondakova.

To date, 57 women cosmonauts and astronauts involved in orbital space flights. To date, the living do not have five of them. All of them are from the United States: three – Judith Resnik, Laurel Blair Salton Clark, Kalpana Chawla and Christa McAuliffe – died in crashes American shuttle “Challenger” and “Columbia”. Two – Janice Voss and Sally Ride – died in 2012.