A few hours ago the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and went en route to the International Space Station carrying three new crew members. The Soyuz is using the trajectory that requires two days of travel instead of the fast track normally used because of the Station’s position.

The three International Space Station’s new members, who include two “passing by” for just 10 days and a third who’s completing the Expedition 45 crew, are:

Sergei Aleksandrovich Volkov. Born on april 1 1973 in Chuhuiv, in the then USSR and now in Ukraine, is the son of cosmonaut Alexander Volkov. After graduating from Tambov Air Force Academy for Pilots as a pilot / engineer, he served as assistant commander of aircraft flying on various models for a total of 450 flight hours. In 1997 he started training as a cosmonaut and, after being part of some backup teams, in April 2008 he left for the International Space Station as part of Expedition 17, working together with Oleg Kononenko, currently on the Station. In June 2011 he returned to the Station as part of Expedition 28/29. He completed a total of three spacewalks. For his merits he received the Hero of the Russian Federation and Russian Federation Armed Forces medals. He’s married and has a son.

Andreas Enevold Mogensen. Born on November 2, 1976 in Copenhagen, Denmark, he earned various international degrees: a Master of Engineering in aeronautical engineering at Imperial College, London, in 1999, a summa cum laude at Ecole Faire in 2004 and a Ph.D in aerospace engineering at the University of Texas, Austin, in 2007. In 2014 he was an aquanaut in the underwater NEEMO 19 mission. This is his first space mission, called iriss.

Aidyn Akanovich Aimbetov. Born on July 27, 1972 in the kolkhoz “Zarya Kommunisma” in the then USSR and now in Kazakhstan, he graduated from Kutakhov Armavir Higher Military Aviation School to become a military pilot. He was selected in the first class of Kazakh cosmonauts in 2002 and trained at Star City, Russia. This is his first space mission. He’s married and has three children.

Two crew members are conducting the one-year mission experiment. The consequence is that they’re staying on the International Space Station instead of returning to Earth. For this reason Sergei Volkov will complete the Expedition 45 while Andreas Mogensen and Aidyn Aimbetov will return to Earth on September 11. The singer Sarah Brightman was scheduled to go to the Station but in May she withdrew and her place was taken by Aimbetov.

The International Space Station is in a different position from its usual one following a maneuver performed recently to avoid a potentially dangerous piece of debris. This has made the necessary maneuvers to use the fast track too risky for the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft so the two-day trip was chosen.