Soyuz TMA-01M docked at the International Space Station as ISS crews went about preparing to conduct a hardware installation. At 00:01 GMT October 9th, Sunday, Soyuz returned from a free flight of two days,all set to bring its space passengers back in the midst of a flurry of activity at the ISS, with the staff trying to install the brand new Sabatier system.

Sabatier is being hailed as a messiah system that is unprecedented in space research and has never been tested. The Sabatier system can produce water and methane making use of excess hydrogen and carbon dioxide both of which so far have been vented into space as a waste product. This means that dependency on resupplies from the earth will be minimal, and a sophisticated life-support module can be harboured, which is regenerative in nature.

Members of the Expedition 25 at ISS will also get a repair of the TVIS treadmill, and the luddite author has no clue if you need to cut flab in zero gravity conditions, or whether this is an unfathomable gadget. Take your pick.

Soyuz docked to port called MRM-2 Zenith after two days of its space rendezvous operations –and the smooth launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome located in Kazakhstan, which went off without any hiccups.

The Expedition 25 crew totals to six crewmembers with the Soyuz docked, with Commander Doug Wheelock, Aleksandr Kaleri as Flight Engineer, Scott Kelly, Oleg Skripochka and Fyodor Dostoesvsky err Yurchikhin, with Shannon Walker rounding up the list.

Image Credit: soyuz