New crew reaches ISS in fastest ever journey from Earth
Almaty, Kazakhstan - A threeperson crew successfully reached the International Space Station on Wednesday aboard a Russian rocket after the fastest ever journey from Earth of just over three hours.
The mission of the Soyuz space craft carrying two Russian cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut was of immense importance to Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, coming as the SpaceX programme relaunches manned spaceflight from the United States and ignites fresh talk of a space race between the two countries.
Roscosmos said, “A new record for flights to the International Space Station was set - the total time from launch to docking of the Soyuz MS-17 was three hours and three minutes.”
Roscosmos has had the job of ferrying US astronauts to the ISS since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.
Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of Roscosmos and NASA’s Kathleen Rubins launched from the Russian-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0545 GMT Wednesday.
Journeys to the ISS usually take around six hours - a time that was a vast improvement on the two-day flights that prevailed prior to 2013.
Wednesday’s manned journey even beat the fastest time for missions just carrying supplies to the station.
Only an unmanned Progress cargo space ship has previously used this profile which requires just two orbits before docking.
The launch is sandwiched between two SpaceX missions - the first manned spaceflights to the ISS under NASA’s aegis since 2011.
Before May 30, when US astronauts Robert Behnken and Doug Hurley arrived at the ISS courtesy of cars to rockets tycoon Elon Musk, Russia and Baikonur had enjoyed a lucrative monopoly on manned missions to the ISS.
But their Dragon Endeavour craft only docked successfully with the ISS about nineteen hours after reaching orbit.
The NASA duo returned safely on August 2 and a fresh SpaceX launch, this time anticipating a full-length half-year mission to the space station, is expected next month.
The emergence of private players SpaceX and Boeing - part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program - has fuelled talk of a new ‘space race’ between a number of countries.
But the men and women who fly to the space station play down talk of competition and focus instead on space travel’s ability to bring rival nations together for a common cause.