The Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft, with a crew of three including one NASA astronaut and two Roscosmos cosmonauts, docked at the ISS, joining an extensive international team for a six-month mission in space, set to conclude in spring 2025.
At 3:32 p.m. EDT, the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft arrived at the orbiting laboratory’s Rassvet module as the International Space Station was flying 262 miles over central Ukraine. NASA astronaut Don Petitt and Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner launched at 12:23 p.m. September 11 (9:23 p.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The hatch between the International Space Station and the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft opened at 5:58 p.m. EDT.
Once aboard, the trio joined Expedition 71 crew members including NASA astronauts Tracy C. Dyson, Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko.
The trio will spend approximately six months aboard the orbital laboratory before returning to Earth in the spring of 2025.
Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.
Follow us on Google and Google News.