21 Sep 2022 18:42

Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft carrying Russian-U.S. ISS crew put into orbit

MOSCOW. Sept 21 (Interfax) - A Soyuz 2.1a carrier rocket has put the Soyuz MS-22 crewed spacecraft carrying the new crew of the International Space Station (ISS) into its target orbit, Russia's space corporation Roscosmos is livestreaming the flight.

The Soyuz MS-22 crewed transport spacecraft smoothly separated from the third stage of the Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle at 5:03 p.m. Moscow time and set a course for the ISS. Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio are on board the spacecraft.

The spacecraft will reach the ISS via an ultrafast two-orbit rendezvous path in approximately three hours and 16 minutes. According to Roscosmos, the Soyuz MS-22 will dock with the Rassvet small research module of the Russian segment of the ISS at 8:11 p.m.

The launch vehicle lifted off as scheduled at 4:54 p.m. Moscow time from Launch Pad 31 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The crew will spend 188 days at the ISS, and the mission will be completed on March 28, 2023. Soyuz MS-22 commander Prokopyev said earlier that the crew would perform five spacewalks. The Russian cargo spacecraft Progress MS-21 and Progress MS-22 are also expected to arrive at the ISS as part of this mission.

This flight is the first one as part of the new agreement on cross-flights to the ISS signed between Russia and the United States. The U.S. Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina as part of its crew will fly to the ISS in October.

The cross-flight arrangement involving Russian cosmonauts in U.S. crews and U.S. astronauts in crews of Russia's Soyuz spacecraft was in effect in the early years of the operation of the ISS and was halted following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Russian spacecraft were the only way of transporting crews to the ISS in 2011-2020.

The current agreement envisages three cross flights in total, however, Sergei Krikalev, executive director for crewed space programs at Roscosmos, told Interfax that it could be extended.