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Russian-US crew blasts off to ISS

October 14, 2020

A Russian capsule carrying a crew of three from NASA and Roscosmos has successfully launched towards the International Space Station. It is the last scheduled Russian flight carrying a US astronaut.

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The Soyuz rocket blasting off from Kazakhstan on October 14
Image: Roscosmos Space Agency via AP/picture-alliance

One astronaut and two cosmonauts blasted off in a Soyuz rocket early Wednesday morning from the Russian-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

NASA's Kate Rubins, and Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, will attempt a fast-track maneuver to reach the ISS in three hours.

Normally, it would take twice as long for a crew to reach the space station orbiting 250 miles above Earth.

Read more: From Apollo 11 to the new space race

According to Roscosmos, the fastest a spacecraft has ever reached the ISS is 3 hours 19 minutes. The record was set during an unmanned resupply mission in August 2019.

Once the crew successfully docks with the ISS, they will relieve the station's NASA commander, Chris Cassidy, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, who will return to Earth next week. 

The new crew will spend six months aboard the ISS.

The new crew of the ISS at a press conference
Kate Rubins (l), Sergey Ryzhikov (m) and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov (r)Image: Russian space agency Roscosmos/Reuters

Testing cellular life and fixing leaks

"We're planning to try some really interesting things like bio-printing tissues and growing cells in space and continuing our work on sequencing DNA,'' NASA astronaut, and microbiologist, Rubins told a pre-launch press conference Tuesday.

In 2016, Rubins sequenced DNA in space for the first time. 

Roscosmos's Ryzhikov, who will take over command of the ISS, said the crew will also try and locate the source of a slow oxygen leak in the station's Russian section, adding that the small leak hasn't posed any immediate danger to the crew.

"We will take with us additional equipment, which will allow us to detect the place of this leak more precisely,'' he told reporters.

Read more: Will the SpaceX launch fire up US-Russian space travel competition?

Last Russian-US launch, for now

Wednesday's mission is the last scheduled Russian flight carrying a US crew member.

Since ending the space shuttle program in 2011, NASA has depended on Russia to transport astronauts to the ISS.

Read more: NASA gives green light for first crewed SpaceX flight

In May, after five years of development, Elon Musk's aeronautics company, SpaceX, and NASA, launched the first manned flight from US soil in nearly a decade. 

In November, NASA and SpaceX will launch the first operational mission to the ISS on the "Crew Dragon" capsule.

wmr/aw (Reuters, AP,AFP)