Michael took pictures at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
On Friday, Sept. 26 2014 Soyuz TMA-14M successfully launched aboard a Soyuz-FG rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 2:25 AM local time. The rocket is launched with Expedition 41 Soyuz Commander Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) Flight Engineer Elena Serova of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Barry Wilmore of NASA. Samokutyaev, Serova, and Wilmore will spend the next five and a half months aboard the International Space Station, Serova will become the fourth Russian woman to fly in space and the first Russian woman to live and work on the station. Michael has photographed the launch at the historic Launch Pad 1 at Baikonour Cosmodrome.
The Cosmodrome is the world's first and largest operational space launch facility. It is located in the desert steppe of Kazakhstan, about 200 km east of the Aral Sea, north of the Syr Darya river, near Tyuratam railway station, at 90 meters above sea level. It is leased by the Kazakh government to Russia (until 2050) and is managed jointly by the Russian Federal Space Agency and the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces. It was originally built by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s as the base of operations for its space program. Under the current Russian space program, Baikonur remains a busy spaceport, with numerous commercial, military and scientific missions being launched annually. All manned Russian spaceflights are launched from Baikonur. Both Vostok 1, the first manned spacecraft in human history with Yuri Gagarin on board, and before it, Sputnik 1, the world's first orbital spaceflight, were launched from one of Baikonur's launch pads.