Despite an unexpected wrinkle with a thruster that made a four-orbit rendezvous into a 32-orbit one, the Russian Soyuz successfully docked with the International Space Station Thursday night.
As Scott reported on Wednesday, the thruster that was supposed to send the capsule into a speedier route failed to burn. NASA explained today that may have been because the capsule wasn't in the right orbital position, so Soyuz decided to fall back to the longer 32-orbit rendezvous.
In any case, at 7:53 p.m. ET., astronaut Steve Swanson and two Russian cosmonauts aboard the capsule saw this welcome sight:
Soyuz docked to #ISS at 7:53pmET. Watch hatch open & welcome of #Exp39 crew at 10:15pm at http://t.co/KX5g7yYVOe pic.twitter.com/tE0GgdB0oG
— NASA (@NASA) March 28, 2014
The capsule is expected to open at 10:15 p.m. ET. NASA will be live streaming:
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