Russian cosmonauts from the Roscosmos space agency Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei successfully launched into the space station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday.
The new crew will dock at the station at 7:07 am ET, and the gates between the Soyuz spacecraft and the station will open around 9:00 ET. Coupling and arrival will also be broadcast live.
This fast trip to the space station, which includes two Earth orbits and about three hours of travel, is courtesy of the new Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft.
Their arrival will bring the total number of crew members to the station to 10 residents.
Space station astronauts have prepared for the new crew by establishing additional sleep stations and clearing ports.
Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, along with NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, recently moved the Soyuz MS-17 capsule from its port to make way for the last crew it launched from Baikonur.
Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins arrived at the Soyuz capsule space station after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in October.
Crew members moved their spacecraft from the Rassvet module, which has an Earth-oriented port, and moved it in March to the Poisk port of attraction, which faces space. This freed up the port of the Rassvet module for the new crew and their Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft.
Rubins, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov will return to Earth on the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft on April 17.
Members of the historic NASA-SpaceX Crew-1, including NASA astronauts Victor Glover Jr., Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi, who launched from the States United on the space station in November, they will also return after the launch of Crew-2 next month.
This second rotation with the NASA-SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft will include NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet.
Crew-2, which could be launched on April 22, will join Crew-1 on the space station before Crew-1 returns to Earth.
This is the second space flight for Vande Hei, the third space flight Novitskiy and the first for Dubrov.
Vande Hei was selected as an astronaut in 2009 and had his first space flight experience on the space station from September 2017 to February 2018. During his 168 days aboard the station, Vande Hei he made four space walks. This time, Vande Hei and crew will work on multiple experiments, including studies on Alzheimer’s disease and portable ultrasound devices.
Vande Hei’s flight to the Soyuz spacecraft is part of a contract with Houston’s Axiom Space. In return, NASA will essentially save a seat on a future launch of commercial spacecraft in 2023 for a non-NASA space station crew member.
While NASA is working with Boeing and SpaceX to ensure safe transportation of the crew to and from the space station via U.S.-based launches, grabbing a seat on the Soyuz means there will always be at least one member of the U.S. crew on the space station.
Its launch comes just three days before the 60th anniversary of the launch of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin as the first human in space, as well as the 40th anniversary of the first launch of NASA’s space shuttle.