Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams along with her two colleagues took off for her second space odyssey on Sunday on a Russian Soyuz rocket,which blasted off from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. NASA astronaut Williams,46,Russian Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency flight engineer Akihiko Hoshide started their two-day voyage at 08.10 am IST for a four-month mission on the International Space Station (ISS). The Soyuz TMA spacecraft is due to dock with the ISSs Zvezda service module at 10.22 am IST on Tuesday. Williams,who earlier worked on the ISS for six months in 2006-07,will further extend the record for the longest stay (195 days) in space for a woman. Williams,a flight engineer on the stations Expedition 32 crew,will take over as commander of Expedition 33 on reaching the space station. The trio will join current ISS occupants Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin and NASA astronaut Joe Acaba. Acaba,Padalka and Revin are scheduled to return on September 17. Padalka will hand over command of station to Williams.
