Olympic flame blasts off for its first ever spacewalk

 
Lift off: Soyuz TMA-11M rocket takes off with the torch on board
epa03939105 The Russian Soyuz TMA-11M rocket booster lifts off, carrying three astronauts who will deliver the torch to the International Space Station (ISS), at a launch pad of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Baikonur, Kazakhstan, 07 November 2013. According to
7 November 2013

The Olympic flame today set off for its first-ever spacewalk as Russia aimed to showcase the Sochi 2014 Winter Games in spectacular style.

A rocket carrying the torch blasted off on its way to the International Space Station. Nasa Live TV showed the spacecraft, emblazoned with the pale blue Sochi 2014 logo, launching from the Russian-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Russia’s Mikhail Tyurin, Nasa’s Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata of Japan beamed at crowds as they carried the lit torch aboard the Soyuz rocket.

The Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazanskiy, now manning the station, will take the flame into space on Saturday before three astronauts return it to Earth on Monday.

The event is part of elaborate preparations for Russia’s first Olympics since the Soviet era. The Games will be the most expensive Olympics ever — summer or winter — at about £31 billion.

Burning pride: Mikhail Tyurin takes the torch on board the spacecraft watched by Koichi Wakata and Rick Mastracchio

For safety reasons, the torch will not burn onboard the space station, as lighting it would consume precious oxygen and pose a threat to the crew.

The Olympic torch went into space in 1996 aboard the US shuttle Atlantis for the 1996 Atlanta Games, but has never been in space before.

The Sochi torch relay, which began in Moscow on October 7, is the longest in Olympics history. The torch will light the Olympic flame on February 7, marking the start of the Winter Games running till February 23.

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