Russia launches to the ISS the first NASA astronaut from El Salvador origin
(Screenshot Roscosmos YouTube)
Collaboration between Russia and Western countries hasn’t completely stopped in space.
Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, launched its Soyuz spacecraft with three crew members, including the NASA astronaut of Salvadoran origin, Francisco Rubio.
This is the first mission after the resumption of the cross-flight program, in which Roscosmos and NASA agreed to exchange seats on their spacecraft.
The next flight will take place in early October, when the Crew Dragon will take Anna Kikina, the fifth female cosmonaut in the history, to the station.
In the 90s, Russia and the United States began to actively cooperate in space, and since 1994, they carried out joint missions.
Russian cosmonauts were included in the Shuttle crew, and American astronauts flew with the Russian crew on the Soyuz .
In 2011, the last flight of the Space Shuttle took place and for almost a decade the United States was left without its own manned spacecraft.
That’s why NASA began to buy out some of the seats on the Soyuz in order to maintain access to the ISS.
Then, in 2020, American astronauts were delivered again to the ISS by an American spacecraft: the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
After that, NASA sent only one of its astronauts to the space station aboard a Soyuz in early 2021.
In the summer, Roscosmos and NASA again agreed on the flights of astronauts on Russian ships, but in a different format: the agencies will exchange places on their ships.
So far, NASA is using the Crew Dragon, but in the future, Russian cosmonauts can start flying to the ISS on the Boeing Starliner, which is still being tested.
THE RECENT FLIGHT
And today September 21, the first of the cross flights took place.
At 07:55 (EST), the Soyuz-2.1a rocket with the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome.
The crew commander is the cosmonaut Sergei Prokoviev, who’s taking his second flight.
Also on the mission are two flight engineers who are flying into space for the first time: Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio.
The docking of the spacecraft with the space station should take place in the evening, at 13:11 (EST).
The mission is expected to end in mid-March of next year.
The next mission under the cross-flight program is scheduled in less than two weeks.
On October 3, the Crew-5 mission will depart for the station taking 3 NASA astronauts and the Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina.
There is still hope that nations can still collaborate in space.
(Robert Markowitz / NASA / Wikimedia Commons https://bit.ly/3S3GXDS)
Source:
- Roscosmos YouTube:
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