Russian Soyuz ferry craft prepped for station flight

Engineers are making final preparations for launch of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft this weekend to ferry an all-veteran U.S.-Russian-Japanese crew to the International Space Station to boost the lab's crew complement back to six. The launch will kick off a "fantastically busy" timeline, with nine space station "visiting vehicle" operations and two spacewalks over the next six weeks.

"The mission is going to be action packed," Soyuz flight engineer and eventual space station commander Sunita Williams told CBS News. "I think we're really up for the pace, we're up for the challenge, we're ready to go."

The Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft was hauled to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Thursday, setting the stage for launch Saturday evening U.S. time.

(Credit: NASA)

Her ride -- the Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft -- is scheduled for liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:40:03 p.m. EDT Saturday (GMT-4; 8:40 a.m. Sunday local time), the 37th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project that opened the door to U.S.-Russian space cooperation.

"They've got a fantastically busy mission ahead of them, they are looking toward nine visiting vehicles during the time they're up on board the space station, which is really a lot of coming and going," said NASA chief astronaut Peggy Whitson, a veteran space station commander. "It's going to take a lot of choreography by the ... [Read more]