Soyuz Spacecraft Docks with ISS, Sets Crew Record
A spacecraft carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and docked with the International Space Station (ISS).
The Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft was carrying NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Russians Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner.
Russian news agencies, referring to a live stream provided by the Roscosmos space corporation, said the craft docked without incident with the Russian segment of the space station.
It is planned that the crew will spend 202 days on board the International Space Station and return on April 1, 2025.
For the six-month mission, 42 scientific experiments are planned, three of them will be conducted for the first time, Roscosmos Russian Space agency said in a statement.
This is the third space mission for Ovchinin, second for Vagner and fourth for Pettit.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit, along with Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, joined the 16 astronauts already aboard the ISS. This brings the total number of humans in Earth's orbit to a record-breaking 19.
For the six-month mission, 42 scientific experiments are planned, three of them will be conducted for the first time, Roscosmos Russian Space agency said in a statement.
This is the third space mission for Ovchinin, second for Vagner and fourth for Pettit.
The crew already aboard the station were performing a lengthy series of system checks before those in the capsule could enter.
The launch took place without obvious problems and the Soyuz entered orbit eight minutes after liftoff, a relief for Russian space authorities after an automated safety system halted a launch in March because of a voltage drop in the power system.
On the space station, Pettit, Vagner and Ovchinin join NASA’s Tracy Dyson, Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, and Russians Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin and Oleg Kononenko.
