Commander Sergei Alexandrovich Volkov and cosmonaut Oleg Dmitrievich Kononenko of the 17th International Space Station crew launched in their Soyuz TMA-12 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:16 a.m. EDT Tuesday to begin a six-month stay in space. With Volkov, a lieutenant colonel in the Russian Air Force, and Kononenko is spaceflight participant So-yeon Yi. She is a South Korean flying under contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency.
