Russian Rocket Launches Astronaut, Cosmonaut, and Flight Attendant to ISS, Days After Glitch

Soyuz Rocket Launches Expedition 71 Crew

The Soyuz rocket launches to the International Space Station with Expedition 71 NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and Belarus spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya, onboard, Saturday, March 23, 2024, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and Belarusian spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya launched successfully to the ISS from Kazakhstan.

Three crew members including NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson successfully launched at 8:36 a.m. EDT on Saturday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission was scheduled to liftoff on March 21, but that launch was scrubbed due to an electrical issue.

Dyson, along with her crewmates Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya, a flight attendant from Belarus, will dock to the space station’s Prichal module at about 11:09 a.m. on Monday, March 25, on the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft.

Docking coverage will begin at 10:15 a.m. on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA appYouTube, and the agency’s website. NASA also will air coverage, starting at 1:15 p.m., of the crew welcome ceremony on NASA+ once they are aboard the orbital outpost. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media.

When the hatches between the station and the Soyuz open about 1:40 p.m., the new crew members will join NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Alexander Grebenkin, already living and working aboard the space station.

Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will be aboard the station for 12 days, before providing the ride home for O’Hara on Saturday, April 6, aboard Soyuz MS-24 for a parachute-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan.

Dyson will spend six months aboard the station as an Expedition 70 and 71 flight engineer, returning to Earth in September with Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Roscosmos, who will complete a year-long mission on the laboratory.

This will be the third spaceflight for Dyson, the fourth for Novitskiy, and the first for Vasilevskaya.

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