On December 19, 2012, the Soyuz spacecraft with an international crew blasted off the launching pad at Baikonur at 4:12 Moscow time, separated from the booster rocket nine minutes later, and then reached its planned elliptical orbit.

The Soyuz TMA-07M craft carried three people into space, the Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, the American astronaut Thomas Marshburn, as well as Canadian Chris Hadfield. The Baikonur cosmodrome reported that the three men feel fine. In the course of the flight, the space crew plans to take two spacewalks and to conduct a number of scientific experiments.

The symbolic mascot selected for this flight is the toy clown Klyopa, who is suspended above the control panel. When the toy floated up to the ceiling of the spaceship, the space travelers knew that they entered the condition of weightlessness.

The participants of space mission no. 345 will spend five months at the International Space Station (ISS). The space travelers will join two Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin and an American astronaut Kevin Ford at the ISS.

The crew’s to-the-minute working schedule for the mission will be quite varied. The space travelers have planned two spacewalks for placing scientific recording devices on the exterior of the ISS.

For Roman Romanenko, the spacewalk during this mission will be his very first one. Cosmonaut Romanenko followed in the footsteps of his father, Yuri Romanenko. Cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko has logged over 430 days in orbit, which placed him in the Guinness Book of World Records as the man who spent the most time in space.

Within the Russian mission at the ISS, the cosmonauts are also slated to undertake some 37 science experiments. The American and the Canadian space travelers also have plans to perform experiments during the mission, the bulk of which will deal with the effect of space travel on the human body. Astronaut Marshburn is a professional doctor and has expressed his eagerness to conduct medical tests in the condition of weightlessness. Thomas Marshburn said he is looking forward to medical research in space. After finishing his education, astronaut Marshburn worked in the field of ambulance medicine until he entered the American space program. In his work with the U.S. space agency, Marshburn oversaw medical testing at the ISS.

Chris Hadfield is the only astronaut from Canada who visited the Mir station in 1995. He also is the number one Canadian astronaut to have made a spacewalk in 2001. In 2013, Astronaut Hadfield will become the chief pilot at the ISS.

The spacecraft carrying Russian, American, and Canadian travelers docked with the ISS on December 21, 2012.