Soyuz launches new station equipment with spectacular fall liftoff – Spaceflight Now

10/16/2020 Health

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Photos released by the Russian space agency show the launch of a Soyuz thruster on Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut in the direction of the International Space Station.

The 162-foot-tall (49-meter) Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off from Pad No. 31 in Baikonur at 10:45:04 a.m. local time on Wednesday. Takeoff occurred at 0545:04 GMT (1:45:04 am EDT).

The Soyuz rocket’s kerosene engines generated more than 900,000 pounds of thrust to propel the mission off the launch pad at Baikonur.

Less than 10 minutes later, the Soyuz upper stage deployed the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft into orbit, kicking off a two-orbit quick rendezvous with the space station. The crew capsule connected to the Rassvet module on the space station at 4:48 a.m. EDT (0848 GMT).

Commander Sergey Ryzhikov rode in the center seat during the three-hour chase of the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft from the space station. Ryzhikov, 46, is a former MiG-29 fighter pilot in the Russian Air Force and a veteran of a previous flight to the space station in 2016 and 2017, when he logged 173 days in orbit.

Russian cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov traveled in the left seat of Soyuz and served as chief flight engineer. Kud-Sverchkov is a 37-year-old space traveler who joined the Russian cosmonaut corps in 2010 after working as a rocket engineer at Energia, the prime contractor for Russia’s human spaceflight program.

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins was in the right seat inside the Soyuz crew capsule. Born in Connecticut and raised in California, Rubins launched on her 42nd birthday to begin her second expedition to the space station after a 115-day mission in 2016. She earned a doctorate in cancer biology, worked in public health, and studied disease. infectious. diseases prior to her selection as a NASA astronaut candidate in 2009.

These photos show the latest preparations for the Soyuz crew’s launch and mission takeoff en route to the space station.