Moscow – A trio of Russian and American astronauts took off for the International Space Station on Friday.
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov left on schedule at 00:42 aboard the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft from the Baikonur launch base. rented by Russia, in Kazakhstan.
The capsule is expected to couple to orbital lab after a three-hour, two-orbit journey.
This is the second space mission for Vande Hei, the third for Novitsky and the first for Dubrov.
During their stay at the EEI, they will work on hundreds of experiments in biology, biotechnology, physics and Earth sciences.
The launch comes three days before the 60th anniversary of the first space flight of a human, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, and the 40th anniversary of the first launch of a NASA space shuttle.
On the Space Station are and NASA members Kate Rubins, Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker; cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
Rubins, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov arrived aboard another Soyuz capsule in October, and Hopkins, Glover, Walker and Noguchi – the crew of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience – joined in November.