Finland Times

 

Finnish-born NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra at Science Centre in Vantaa. File Photo – Lehtikuva.

Finnish born astronaut Timothy Kopra, 52, left on Tuesday for his second trip into space, as the Soyuz space shuttle launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for the International Space Station (ISS).

 

On this trip, Kopra took along a Jean Sibelius collector coin, which President Sauli Niinistö had given him. On his previous journey, Kopra took along a Kalevala medal. Kopra is spending nearly half a year aboard the ISS, alongside Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and the first British astronaut to visit the ISS, Tim Peake.

 

Peake’s journey into space has inspired space fervour among the British. Thousands of people met at the London Natural Science Museum to follow the rocket’s launch on a giant video screen. There were, among others, a few thousand enthusiastically screaming schoolgirls.

 

The space shuttle was due to dock to the ISS later on Tuesday night.