A Russian-American crew took off from Baikonur the day before on board the Russian Soyuz MS-24.
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai went to the ISS. The Russians will spend 12 months aboard the International Space Station.
The manned spacecraft Soyuz MS-24 will be launched into orbit by the Soyuz-2.1a rocket, which was launched the day before from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, MIA reports.
Less than 10 minutes after launch, the rocket launched the manned spacecraft into low Earth orbit.
Next, the third stage separated and the spacecraft flew independently to the ISS, which would take more than three hours.
International crew
On board the ship are Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, who will spend a whole year on the International Space Station, and US astronaut Loral O’Hara.
The commander of the Russian cosmonaut corps, Oleg Kononenko, went on his fifth mission to the ISS.
Nikolai Chub and Loral O’Hara will be in space for the first time, and the American will return to Earth in six months.
Space record
As a result of the next business trip, Oleg Kononenko’s stay in space will exceed a thousand days, which will become a record in the history of human exploration of outer space.
As part of the Russian research program, almost 60 scientific experiments are to be carried out, of which 7 are new. The astronauts will also perform 4 spacewalks.
