Liftoff! International Crew Launches Toward Space Station

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan — Three space fliers have just embarked on a two-day journey to the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA's Serena Auñón-Chancellor, cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst launched aboard a Russian Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft today (June 6) from Baikonur Cosmodrome here in this Central Asian nation. The Soyuz rocket carrying their spacecraft lifted off at 7:12 a.m. EDT (1112 GMT; 5:12 p.m. local Kazakhstan time.)

If all goes according to plan, the trio will reach the ISS Friday morning (June 8). Their arrival will bring the orbiting lab up to its full complement of six crewmembers. Currently, the ISS is home to NASA astronauts Drew Feustel (who is commanding the current mission, which is called Expedition 56) and Ricky Arnold, as well as Oleg Artemyev, of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. [Related: Follow Elizabeth Howell's Russian Rocket Launch Road Trip!]

A Russian Soyuz rocket lifts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on June 6, 2018 carrying NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst on the Expedition 56 mission to the International Space Station.
Credit: NASA TV

Gerst has flown in space before. He lived aboard the ISS between May and November 2014, when he was part of the Expedition 40/41 crew; he performed a single spacewalk, with NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman. Gerst will also command the future Expedition 57, which will begin in a few months, when Feustel, Arnold and Artemyev depart.

This is the first spaceflight for both Prokopyev and Auñón-Chancellor. Prokopyev, a former commander of a Russian Tu-160 bomber squadron, was selected as a test cosmonaut candidate in 2010.

Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev (bottom, NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor (center) and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst say farewell to Earth as they prepare to board their Soyuz MS--09 spacecraft for a launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on June 6, 2018. The trio is headed to the International Space Station.
Credit: NASA

NASA picked Auñón-Chancellor— a former astronaut flight surgeon — as an astronaut candidate in 2009. She has two NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations missions under her belt; she lived in the Aquarius undersea laboratory near Key West, Florida, for stretches in both 2012 and 2015.

Auñón-Chancellor is a replacement for Jeanette Epps, who was originally supposed to fly on this mission. NASA announced the change in January but has not given any details about why the switch was made. Epps, who would have been the first-ever African-American ISS crewmember, will still be considered for future space missions, agency officials have said.

The new trio's launch comes shortly after the departure of three ISS crewmembers. A Soyuz spacecraft carrying Roscosmos cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Norishige "Neemo" Kanai and NASA astronaut Scott "Maker" Tingle left the orbiting lab early Sunday morning (June 3) and landed safely on the steppes of Kazakhstan a few hours later.

In a new twist, the Soyuz that launched Auñón-Chancellor, Gerst and Prokopyev also carried a new camera that beamed spectacular live views from space as the rocket soared into orbit. In one striking image, the camera caught a farewell glimpse of the Soyuz's upper stage as it fell away from the MS-09 space capsule.

Shortly after launch, a Russian Soyuz rocket, carrying NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, looks back down at Earth while separating.
Credit: NASA TV

The new crew will have just a few days to get adjusted to space before a planned spacewalk on June 14. Arnold and Feustel will install equipment to help upcoming U.S. commercial crew vehicles align themselves with the international docking adapter on the Harmony module of the ISS. The astronauts will install brackets and high-definition cameras on Harmony that will assist with the dockings; the cameras will also be used for wireless data networking with experiments on the ISS, NASA officials have said.

The next launch to the ISS is expected to be a SpaceX Dragon resupply mission. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying an uncrewed Dragon is expected to launch no earlier than June 28 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Editor's note: Elizabeth Howell is a freelance space reporter covering the launch and docking of Expedition 56 for Space.com from Baikonur Coosmodrome and Moscow. You can follow her epic Russian rocket launch road trip here .

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

Let's block ads! (Why?)