(CNN) – The International Space Station is where you’ll be in April. Multiple arrivals and departures this month make the floating laboratory look more like a hotel.
The Russian space agencies Roscosmos, cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday Space Station.
The launch was broadcast live on the television channel and NASA website. The start took place punctually at 3:42 a.m. The separations of the first, second and third stages went smoothly and allowed the spaceship with its installed solar system and antennas to fly freely.
The new crew berthed at the station at 7:05 a.m. CET, and the hatches between the Soyuz -The spaceship and the station opened at 9:20 am CET. The docking and arrival were also broadcast live.
This quick trip to the space station, which includes two Earth orbits and approximately three hours of travel time, was courtesy of the new Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft.
By their arrival the total number of crew members on the station will be increased to 10 inhabitants.
Astronauts on the space station have prepared for the new crew by setting up additional sleeping stations and opening ports.
The Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, along with NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, recently moved the Soyuz MS-17 capsule out of their port to make way for the newest crew, which will depart from Baikonur.
Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins arrived at the space station in the Soyuz capsule after taking off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in October.
The crew members relocated their spaceship iff from the Rassvet module, which has an earth-facing port, and moved it to the Poisk docking port, which faces space, in March. This cleared the Rassvet module connector for the new crew and their Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft.
Rubins, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov will return to Earth in the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft on April 17th.
Members of the historic NASA-SpaceX Crew-1, including NASA astronauts Victor Glover Jr., Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker and astronaut Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, who took off from the US for the space station in November, will also be after the launch of Crew-2 next month.
This second rotation with the spacecraft NASA-SpaceX Crew Dragon will include NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, astronauts Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the astronauts Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency.
Crew-2, which could launch on April 22nd, will join Crew-1 on the space station before Crew-1 returns to Earth.
This is the second Spaceflight for Vand e Hei, the third Novitskiy space flight 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 on board the station, Vande Hei performed four spacewalks. This time around, Vande Hei and the crew will be working on several experiments, including studies of Alzheimer’s disease and portable ultrasound machines.
Vande Hei’s flight on the Soyuz spacecraft is part of a contract with Axiom Space of Houston. In return, NASA will essentially secure a seat for a crew member of a non-NASA space station on a future commercial spacecraft launch in 2023.
While NASA is working with Boeing and SpaceX to ensure safe transportation of the crew to the and to ensure US launches from the space station, occupying a seat on the Soyuz means that there will always be at least one US crew member on the space station.
Your launch occurred just three days before the 60th anniversary of the Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin launched as the first human in space and before the 40th anniversary of the first NASA space shuttle launch.
This story was first published on CNN.com: « Russian cosmonauts, NASA astronaut successfully launched to the space station «
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