Soyuz rocket carrying two Russians and one American astronaut to ISS launched from Baikonur

An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts left for the International Space Station today, a journey that marks a rare moment of cooperation between Moscow and Washington amid the war in Ukraine.

The Soyuz rocket was launched at the scheduled time, at 16:54 (Greece time) from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

“The stability is good (…) the crew is feeling good,” a NASA spokesman said after the launch, which was broadcast live on the websites of the US and Russian space agencies.

The rocket carrying American Frank Rubio and Russians Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin is expected to dock with the International Space Station within the next three hours. Rubio is the first American astronaut to depart for the ISS on a Russian rocket since Russia invaded Ukraine.

The crew will spend six months on the ISS where the Russians Olegy Artemiev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov, the Americans Bob Hines, Kiel Lindgren and Jessica Watkins and the Italian Samantha Cristoforetti are at this time.

The ISS, the fruit of cooperation between the US, Canada, Japan, Russia and the European Space Agency, is divided into two sections: the American and the Russian. To stay in orbit it depends on the Russian propulsion system while the American part manages the electrical power and survival systems.

Anna Kikina, Russia’s only active female cosmonaut, is scheduled to depart for the ISS in early October on a SpaceX Crew Dragon rocket. She will be the first woman to fly in a rocket of billionaire Elon Musk’s company.

Russia wants to leave the ISS after 2024 and build its own space station, but has not set when that will happen. NASA described this decision as a “regrettable development”, considering that it will make scientific research on the ISS more difficult.

Space experts estimate that the construction of a new space station could take more than 10 years, and the Russian space industry, the “pride” of Moscow since the time of the USSR, would not be able to cope with the project under the sanctions regime. .

RES-EMP

Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.