Expedition 12 Launch

JSC2005-E-40271 (1 Oct. 2005) --- A Soyuz rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan with astronaut William S. (Bill) McArthur, Jr., Expedition 12 commander; cosmonaut Valery I. Tokarev, flight engineer and Soyuz commander; and U.S. spaceflight participant Gregory Olsen aboard. The trio is on a mission to the International Space Station lasting six months for McArthur and Tokarev. Olsen will return with the current station crew, Expedition 11, after ten days in space under a commercial contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency. Photo Credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov