Russian space agency Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei successfully launched into space at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday.
The new crew will dock at the station at 7:07 a.m. ET, and the hatches between the Soyuz spacecraft and the station will open around 9:00 a.m. ET. Docking and arrival will be broadcast live.
This fast trip to the space station, which includes two Earth orbits and about three hours of travel, is due to the new Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft.
Their arrival will bring the total number of crew members per station to 10 residents.
The astronauts on the space station prepared for the new crew by creating additional sleep stations and clearing the 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 latest crew launched from Baikonur.
Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins arrived on the Soyuz capsule space station after being launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in October.
Crew members moved their spacecraft from the Rassvet module, which has an Earth-facing port, and moved it to the space dock Poisk, which faces space, in March. This released the port of the Rassvet module for the new crew and Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft.
Rubins, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov will return to Earth in the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft on April 17.
Members of the NASA-SpaceX Crew-1 historian, including NASA astronauts Victor Glover Jr., Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi, who launched from the US at the space station in November, will also return after launch. Crew-2 next month.
This second rotation using 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 for 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. In the 168 days aboard the station, Vande Hei performed four space walks. This time, Vande Hei and his crew will be working on several experiments, including studies on Alzheimer’s disease and portable ultrasound devices.
Vande Hei’s flight on the Soyuz spacecraft is part of a contract with Axiom Space in Houston. Instead, NASA will essentially save a place on a future commercial spacecraft launch in 2023 for a non-NASA space station crew member.
While NASA is working with Boeing and SpaceX to ensure the safe transportation of crew to and from the space station using US launches, grabbing a seat on the Soyuz means there will always be at least one US crew member on the space station.
Their launch comes just three days before the 60th anniversary of the launch of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin as the first man in space, as well as the 40th anniversary of the first launch of NASA’s space shuttle.