A Russian Soyuz spacecraft will launch an American astronaut and two cosmonauts to the Worldwide House Station early Friday (April 9) — and you’ll watch it reside on-line.
The Soyuz capsule carrying NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov is scheduled to launch atop a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:42 a.m. EDT (0742 GMT or 12:42 p.m. native time) on Friday for a fast, three-hour experience to the Worldwide House Station.
You’ll be able to watch the motion reside right here at House.com, courtesy of NASA, or immediately through the area company. Launch protection will begin at 2:45 a.m. EDT (0745 GMT).
Video: Astronaut Mark Vande Hei dishes on his last-minute spaceflight
If every thing goes in response to plan, the trio’s spacecraft will dock with the area station round 7:07 a.m. EDT (1107 GMT). Protection of that occasion will start at 6:15 a.m. EDT (1015 GMT). NASA may even webcast the hatch opening and crew or flight controller remarks, that are anticipated to happen round 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT).
This mission would be the second spaceflight for Vande Hei, the third for Soyuz commander Novitskiy and the primary for Dubrov.
NASA introduced Vande Hei’s involvement on this mission simply final month. Often crewmembers for long-duration area station missions get years of discover, however NASA fast-tracked Vande Hei after the company’s plans to shift to business crew alternatives have been sophisticated by ongoing technical points with Boeing’s Starliner astronaut taxi, which can delay that car’s first crewed flight to 2022.
(Like Boeing, SpaceX holds a contract with NASA’s Business Crew Program. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule is up and working and has already carried two crews to the orbiting lab.)
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Vande Hei did have some discover of the flight earlier than the general public announcement, he advised House.com in an unique interview. “Me getting ready for this flight was one thing we had finished as a contingency, simply in case we may get the seat,” he mentioned.
NASA often buys seats aboard the Soyuz. However on this case, NASA and Roscosmos, Russia’s federal area company, as an alternative agreed to trade seats — Vande Hei’s on the Soyuz for a to-be-determined Roscosmos astronaut on a future business crew flight. Flight assignments are nonetheless being decided as NASA works out the kinks with business crew scheduling, and Vande Hei could thus spend a yr reasonably than the same old six months in area. However that hasn’t been totally determined but.
“Issues change and … we’ve to coordinate with the Russians, Roscosmos particularly, to determine when to return again,” Vande Hei advised House.com.
His earlier spaceflight lasted six months. So Vande Hei mentioned he’ll sit up for a brand new “life expertise” if he’s tasked to remain aloft for a yr.
The three-person Soyuz MS-18 crew will be a part of seven Expedition 64 spaceflyers presently on the orbiting lab, making for one of many largest crews in current reminiscence. The seven individuals already there arrived on two spaceships final yr. A Soyuz introduced NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov to the station in October. Then, a SpaceX Crew Dragon despatched NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, in addition to Japan’s Soichi Noguchi, to the orbiting advanced in November.
Friday’s launch will happen three days earlier than the sixtieth anniversary of the primary human spaceflight, from the identical place that hosted that historic liftoff. On April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin launched to Earth orbit from Baikonur. Russia’s area company Roscosmos has named the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft Gagarin after the famed cosmonaut.
Observe Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Fb.