ISS receives a new three men crew aboard

Despite tensions between Western powers, US and Russia, collaboration has to work 300 kilometers up on Earth's orbit. Russian space agency announced that its Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft carrying three astronauts docked successfully with the International Space Station.

The Russian rocket took Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suravyev, NASA's Reid Wiseman and German Alexandder Gerst representig the European Space Agency to the ISS. They were awaited by other three astronauts on board, Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev, but also US astronaut Steve Swanson.

The Soyuz rocket was launched from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan right on schedule and six hours after that the three men crew was already on board the ISS. The new crew members are scheduled to spend 167 days in space and perform various scientific tests. Alexander Gerst is on his first mission and according to ESA in his six-month stay aboard the ISS he is expected to work on some 100 experiments.

Since the retirement of the US Space Shuttle, NASA and ESA rely on Russia to deliver men and equipment to the ISS thanks to the Russia's tried and trusted Soyuz capsule system.

However, amid tensions between Russia and Western Powers, NASA suspended all cooperation with Russia except for the ISS programme. But the Russians answered back. Deputy Prime Minister Dimitry Rogozin who oversees the space sector said Russian administration could turn down any request coming from the US and that NASA might have to use a trampoline to send its men to the ISS.