In accordance with the mission plan of the International Space Station (ISS) and Russian commitments under this international project, a manned transportation spacecraft Soyuz TMA-22 was launched from Baikonur launch site at 08:14:04 AM Moscow Time.
The objective of the launch is to deliver to ISS a crew of three in order to bring the crew of the Expedition (ISS-29/30) up to six.
The crew of Soyuz TMA-22 consists of: Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov (spacecraft commander), Anatoliy Ivanishin (spacecraft flight engineer) and US astronaut Daniel Burbank (flight engineer-2 of the spacecraft).
The spacecraft was put into a parking low-Earth orbit with the following parameters: 51.64 degrees inclination , 200.89 km minimal altitude, 258.61 km maximum altitude, 88.80 minutes orbital period.
The onboard systems of the spacecraft operate normally.
At the launch site, the spacecraft prelaunch processing and launch were performed under the direction of the State Commission (chaired by the head of Roscosmos V.A. Popovkin).
The Commission was basing its decisions to proceed with each next step in processing and launching on the final report of the Technical Management headed by the President of RSC Energia, Designer General V.A. Lopota.
According to the telemetry data and reports from the crew of ISS, the space station systems operate normally. The station is ready for docking with the spacecraft.
