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This is the first such flight since a US spacecraft transported a crew of astronauts to TKS this year for the first time in nearly a decade.
The spacecraft took off at 5 pm 45 min. Greenwich Mean Time (8:45 am Lithuania) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome used by Russia in Kazakhstan. Its crew is made up of the American Kathleen Rubins and the Russian astronauts Sergei Ryzhikov and Sergei Kudis-Sverchkov.
A NASA television commentator said, based on communication between the Russian mission controllers and the crew, that everything went smoothly, and Roskosmos said the capsule had successfully entered orbit.
This is the first human flight to TKS, lasting just over three hours before the capsule connects to the station. The new flight plan is twice as short as standard trips to an orbiting laboratory.
Previously, this plan, which required only two orbits before merging with TKS, was limited to unmanned cargo flights by the Progress cargo spacecraft.
Wednesday’s flight took place between two SpaceX flights, the first NASA-supervised manned space trips to TKS since 2011.
Until May 30, when American astronauts Robert Behnken and Doug Hurley arrived at TKS, Russia and Baikonur benefited from the monopoly of manned missions to TKS.
The two NASA astronauts successfully returned to Earth on August 2, and another SpaceX flight, during which the crew will fly to TKS for six months, is scheduled for next month.
The arrival of private players SpaceX and Boeing has fueled rumors of new “space races” between nations.
However, the men and women who fly to TKS do not place much weight on competing speeches and instead emphasize the ability of space travel to bring competing states together for a common cause.
At a press conference Tuesday before launch, Rubins did not directly mention the SpaceX flight when asked how he felt about the beginning of a new era of space flight.
“We are not choosing our start date or what is happening at the station, but I really feel incredibly happy to be at the station … during these events,” said the astronaut, who celebrates her 42nd birthday Wednesday.
TKS, which has had a stable population since 2000, is a rare example of cooperation between Moscow and Washington, but the last decade of this project may be just beginning.
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