A Russian Soyuz rocket launched today carrying two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS), a now-rare US-Russia collaboration amid escalating tensions.

The rocket lifted off at 18:44 (Greece time) from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The mission comes less than a month after Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft crashed on the Moon, a setback that reminded the Russian space industry of years of difficulties.

The moment of launch

Soyuz will carry Russians Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chumb and American Loral O’Hara to the ISS. For Chubb and O’Hara, this is their first trip to space.

At a press conference on Thursday, O’Hara said she was “excited” about the mission. “The atmosphere is good, the crew is ready to fulfill all the tasks entrusted to us,” commented Chubb.

Soyuz

The two cosmonauts and the astronaut will take over from Russians Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin and American Frank Rubio, who have been at the space lab for a year. Their mission was extended due to damage to the spacecraft they were to return to Earth with, Soyuz MS-22. The Russian space agency decided that this craft should not be used, except in an emergency, and decided to pick them up from there on the next mission, MS-23.

Space is one of the few areas in which Russia and the US still cooperate. O’Hara commented Thursday that the ISS is “a symbol of peace and cooperation.”

“Unlike what happens on Earth (…) where nations often don’t agree with each other, we get along very well up there, we understand each other and (…) we always look out for each other,” confirmed Kononenko.