ISS crew leaves on ‘fast-track’ journey
MOSCOW: Two cosmonauts and a Nasa astronaut blasted off on a fasttrack journey to the International Space Station yesterday, in the first such launch aboard a Russian capsule since SpaceX’s game-changing debut manned flight from US soil.
Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey KudSverchkov of Roscosmos and Nasa’s Kathleen Rubins launched from the Russian-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5.45am GMT yesterday.
A Nasa TV commentator said everything was normal, citing communications between Russian mission control and the crew, while Roscosmos said the capsule had successfully gone into orbit.
Their journey was the first manned flight to the ISS to last just over three hours before docking — a new fast-track profile that takes half the time of standard trips to the orbital lab.
Only an unmanned Progress cargo space ship has previously used this profile, which requires just two orbits before docking.
Stringent precautions, including tighter quarantine and mask-wearing before launch, have been taken due to the coronavirus pandemic but the astronauts and space officials have rejected any concerns about a risk of infection on the station.
The launch is sandwiched between two SpaceX l aunches — 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, Russia and Baikonur had enjoyed a lucrative monopoly on manned missions to the ISS.
The Nasa duo returned safely on Aug 2 and a fresh SpaceX launch, this time anticipating a full-length half-year mission at 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 that fly to the space station have played down talk of competition and focused instead on space travel’s ability to bring rival nations together for a common cause.
Speaking at a pre-launch press conference on Tuesday, Ms Rubins did not directly reference the SpaceX flight when asked how she felt to be on board during a new era in spaceflight.
“We don’t get to choose our launch date or what occurs on station but certainly I feel incredibly lucky to be on station when... these events are happening,” said the American astronaut, who was celebrating her 42nd birthday yesterday.
Ms Rubins was a microbiologist who researched the Ebola virus among other viruses before she became an astronaut, launching to the ISS for the first time in 2016. Lt Col Ryzhikov, 46, a former military pilot, has spent 173 days in space compared to Ms Rubins’ 115 while Mr Kud-Sverchkov, 37, is flying for the first time.