Happy Cosmonautics Day! Business end of the Soyuz rocket. This frame was made as the Soyuz TMA-6 spacecraft was being attached to the rocket booster in the integration facility April 12, 2005 in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The rocket mating was in preparation for the April 15, 2005 launch of Expedition 11 Sergei Krikalev of Russia, Flight Engineer John Phillips of NASA and European Space Agency Astronaut Roberto Vittori of Italy to the International Space Station. Krikalev and Phillips spent six months in space and greeted the first Shuttle crew to fly in more than two years after arriving at the Station, while Vittori spent eight days on the Station under a commercial contract between ESA and the Russian Federal Space Agency. The rocket mating operation occurred on the 44th anniversary of the launch of Yuri Gagarin from the same complex to become the first human in space. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls) . . . . . . @nasa #billingalls #baikonur #expedition11 #kazakhstan #Қазақстан #rocket #space #Байқоңыр #Космодром #soyuz #rocket @gctc_official @roscosmosofficial @europeanspaceagency #cosmonauticsday #денькосмонавтики (at Baikonur Cosmodrome) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-411nmFg_a/?igshid=4ae9128phb17
