U.S. Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying Roscosmos cosmonaut docks with ISS - NASA

WASHINGTON. March 5 (Interfax) - U.S. SpaceX Crew Dragon carrying three NASA astronauts and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, which launched on Monday, successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, NASA reported.

The Crew Dragon docked automatically with the Harmony module of the U.S. segment of the ISS at 2:28 a.m. EST.

Apart from Grebenkin, SpaceX Crew-8 also includes NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps. All of them are scheduled to work on board the ISS until mid-August.

They are to conduct 200 scientific experiments while in orbit.

About an hour and a half after docking, the hatches between the Crew Dragon and Harmony module should open to let the crew board the station.

The spacecraft lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida using a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle. This is the fifth mission of this reusable spacecraft.

The international crew currently working on the ISS includes Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Konstantin Borisov, NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa.

In July 2022, Roscosmos and NASA signed an agreement under the ISS program on cross-flights of three Russian cosmonauts on the U.S. Crew Dragon spacecraft and three U.S. astronauts on Russia's Soyuz MS in 2022-2024.

In December 2023, Roscosmos said it extended the cross-flights agreement with NASA until 2025. Roscosmos Executive Director for Manned Space Programs Sergei Krikalev told Interfax the additional agreement envisioned two more joint flights to the ISS before 2025.