File:SoyuzTMA12 Launch.jpg

English: At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft lifted off into a cloudless sky April 8, 2008 at 5:16 p.m. Baikonur time to carry Expedition 17 Commander Sergei Volkov, Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko and South Korean spaceflight participant So-yeon Yi to the International Space Station and a docking on April 10. Volkov and Kononenko will spend six months on the station while Yi will spend nine days on the complex under a commercial agreement between South Korea and the Russian Federal Space Agency.