INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION, Sept. 12 - Roskosmos cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner (who will also work on the orbital station as a special correspondent for TASS news agency) and NASA astronaut Donald Pettit have left the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft and entered the International Space Station (ISS), the Russian State Space Corporation said.
"The hatches are open. The [ISS] crew welcomes Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Donald Pettit," Roskosmos wrote on its Telegram channel.
The long-term Expedition 71 crew in orbit includes Roskosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko (TASS special correspondent), Nikolai Chub and Alexander Grebenkin, NASA astronauts Tracy Caldwell-Dyson, Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps and their colleagues Barry E. Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who arrived at the space station as part of the first manned Boeing Starliner mission.
The Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle with the Soyuz MS-26 manned spacecraft and three crew members of the 72nd Long Duration Expedition to the ISS successfully launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome at 19:23 Moscow time (17:23 CET) and docked with the ISS at 22:33 Moscow time [19:33 CET].
The crew is scheduled to spend 202 days in orbit and return on April 1, 2025. Their mission, which will last approximately six months, lists 42 science experiments, including three performed for the first time. Ovchinin previously said the science plan includes experiments in medicine, biology, remote sensing of Earth and other fields. Also, the crew will continue scientific work involving a 3D bioprinter.
Ovchinin and Vagner will also make an ascent into free space in December to install a spectrometer on the outer surface of the Zvezda module.
TASS/ gnews - RoZ_07
Roskosmos cosmonaut Ivan Vagner, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roskosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin (top to bottom).
PHOTO - POOL/TASS/ Maxim Blinov
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