by Two days after a abortion sent the second rarerA Russian Soyuz spacecraft blasted off Saturday on a flight to the International Space Station, carrying two short-term crew members and a NASA astronaut on a six-month tour of duty.
Soyuz MS-25/71S commander Oleg Novitskiy, Belarusian guest cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya and NASA veteran Tracy Dyson thundered out of the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 8:36 am EDT (5:36 pm local time) and slipped into orbit eight minutes and 45 seconds later.
The launch was originally planned for last Thursday, but the countdown was cut short within 20 seconds of launch when computers detected low voltage readings in the Soyuz 2.1a rocket’s first stage electrical system.
This was the first such abort for a Soyuz rocket, and it took Russian engineers a day to review the telemetry, find the problem and replace suspect batteries. A subsequent test showed all systems were going for the second launch attempt on Saturday.
As the Soyuz countdown drew to a late afternoon launch in Kazakhstan, the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship launched Thursday from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station up to the space station and moved in for docking at 7:19 a.m. local time, delivering 6,200 pounds of scientific equipment, spare parts and crew supplies for the laboratory complex, including fresh food and coffee kits.
The Soyuz is expected to catch up with the space station on Monday, moving in for docking at a port on the Earth-facing Prichal module at 11:09 local time.
Standing to welcome them on board will be the station commander Oleg Kononenko, cosmonauts Nikolai Chub and Alexander Grebenkin and NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara, Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps.
Vasilevskaya, a talented ballroom dancer and flight attendant with Belavia Airlines, is the first citizen of Belarus, a staunch ally of Russia, to fly in space since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
She was selected as a “space flight participant” in a national competition and will conduct research for scientists in Belarus as part of a program called Belarus Woman in Space.
Dyson is making her third spaceflight and her second aboard a Soyuz. Despite the political tension between the United States and Russia, the team seems to be doing well.
“Working with Marina was a real pleasure,” said Dyson. “She has a great attitude, and that goes a long way when you’re working together with emergency masks on your face in terrible conditions trying to get through (emergency training).
Kononenko, Chub and O’Hara were launched to the station last September 15 aboard the Soyuz MS-24/70S spacecraft. Dominick, Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin launched on March 3 aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon ferry. Called Crew 8, they replaced four other Crew Dragon flyers – Crew 7 – which returned to Earth on March 12 after a brief transfer.
Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya plan to spend 12 days aboard the space station. O’Hara will take Dyson’s place for the trip home and the trio will return to Earth on April 6 aboard the Soyuz MS-24/70S spacecraft that carried O’Hara, Kononenko and Chub into orbit last September.
Kononenko and Chub are halfway through a planned one-year stay aboard the station. If all goes well, they will return to Earth next September, together with Dyson, using the Soyuz MS-25/71S ferry delivered by the Novitskiy crew.
O’Hara’s return will replace five of the station’s seven full-time staff members, completing the latest sequence of crew rotations.
Dyson first flew aboard the space shuttle Endeavor for a 13-day visit to the space station in 2007. Three years later, she blasted off aboard a Soyuz spacecraft as a long-duration station crew member, logging 176 days on the board of the outpost between April and the end. of September 2010.
During that flight, she captured a now-famous picture of Dyson looking down at the blue-and-white Earth suspended in the darkness of space as seen from the laboratory’s multi-window Cupola compartment.
In an interview with CBS News, she said that she now knows what to expect and “this time, I’m going to see how I can help the other people.”
“Part of the beauty of living aboard is being part of a team and helping each other,” she said. “So if I have any spare time and the rest of my companions are working, I will certainly try to lend a hand when I could. But if we are all experiencing some free time, yes I really am looking forward to that view out the window.
“I remember (the experience) so much and that cupola shot definitely shows that, from watching the World. And that never gets old.”
Another matter is the training he has to achieve, she said.
“That’s the hardest part about what we do, the training, which requires us to be away from home for long periods of time,” she said. “When I did this on my first two flights, it wasn’t so bad because it was really just me at home. I had a dog that other people were willing to take care of. My husband was deployed on a ship. “
“But now it’s a little different, and I have a lot of support from my family, who have reminded me over and over again that I’m doing this for them as much as I’m doing it for myself.”
She will face a very busy six months in space.
Boeing’s Starliner shuttle, a NASA-sponsored alternative to SpaceX’s already-developed Crew Dragon, is expected to make its first pilot test flight in early May, carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams to the space station on a shakedown flight.
If the flight is successful, the Starliner will be certified for use in future crewed rotation missions to the ISS, replacing SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and providing NASA with redundancy in sending astronauts to and from the space station.
“Today, all of our Crew Dragons are launching on (SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets),” said space station Program Manager Dana Weigel. “If there was a problem with F9, for example, and we had to stand down for a while … if we had another vehicle we could continue flying.”
And that would help ensure that one or more American astronauts are always on board the space station.
“That’s why, when we talk about having multiple suppliers, why it’s so important for us to have that continuous capability,” Weigel said.
In June, NASA plans three spacewalks, or EVAs, to perform various tasks, including work to prepare for adding a final set of rolled-out solar array blankets.
No astronauts have been assigned to the trips yet, but Dyson is a space veteran and her experience may inspire NASA to send her back outside.
“We have three EVAs planned for our increment, and I am one of the astronauts trained to do those EVAs,” she said. “We’ll see how they all work and who goes out and who stays in to fit them all in.”
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