Russia spacecraft lifts off to ISS with NASA astronoaut, 2 Russian cosmonauts
Moscow: A Russian Soyuz-2.1a rocket, named the 'Victory Rocket' in honour of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, launched on Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station (ISS), state media reported.
The rocket carried the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft with three crew members- Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritsky, and NASA astronaut Jonathan Kim - the Russian Space Corporation (Roscosmos) said as cited by TASS.
The launch was broadcast on Russian state television and carried out at 5.47 GMT. The spacecraft will be delivered to orbit in about nine minutes and expected to dock with the Prichal module of the Russian segment of the ISS at about 9:04 am GMT.
The three-member crew is expected to remain aboard the ISS for a period of 245 days or eight months.
NASA astronaut Jonathan Kim, 41, is a US Navy SEAL and a medical doctor while Ryzhikov, 50, is a pilot in the Russian Air Force and Zubritsky, 32, is on his first space mission.
This is also the first flight for Kim and the third for Ryzhikov as per NASA.
NASA said Kim will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare the crew for future space missions and provide benefits to people on Earth.
Kim, Ryzhikov and Zubritsky will join NASA astronauts Don Pettit, Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Kirill Peskov on the space outpost.
Russia's Roscosmos State Space Corporation said earlier that at least 2,500 tourists had arrived in Baikonur to watch the launch.
TASS cited an interview of Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov with the International Affairs journal in which he said that Russia and the United States can achieve success in the space sphere via a public-private partnership, provided there is political will.
The rocket crew's insignia includes special insignias to honour 60 years since the world's first spacewalk in March 1965, and 50 years since the first joint mission between the US and Russia, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, in July 1975.
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