KOROLEV /Moscow Region/, March 18. /TASS/. The Soyuz MS-21 manned spacecraft (also referred to as S. P. Korolev) with three Russian cosmonauts on board docked with the Prichal module of the International Space Station on Friday, a TASS correspondent reported from the Mission Control Center.
It was the first docking of a transport spacecraft with the Prichal module. The flight to the ISS was carried out under the two-orbit scheme.
The docking was originally expected to be automatic, but later a decision was made to proceed in manual mode.
A Soyuz-2.1a space rocket carrying the S.P. Korolyov spacecraft (Soyuz MS-21) with a crew of three - Oleg Artemiev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov - blasted off from the Baikonur space center at 18:55 on Friday. The spacecraft was named after renowned Soviet spacecraft designer, founder of crewed space programs Sergey Korolyov.
It has a crew of three - Oleg Artemiev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov. For the first time in many years all three professional cosmonauts going to the ISS are Russian.
Artemiev, Matveyev and Korsakov will spend 195 days aboard the ISS to return to Earth on September 30.
During the space mission the crew is to stage more than 50 experiments in space biology and physiology, materials processing, cosmic ray physics and other fields. As Artemiev said, there will be seven spacewalks. One will be in cooperation with Italian astronaut Samantha Christoforetti, and all others with Denis Matveyev.
On March 19, Artemiev will get down to work in his other capacity - that of a TASS special correspondent in space. He will be the agency’s second envoy to the orbital outpost. His mission will be to keep the TASS audience abreast of latest news on the ISS and share photos and videos on the agency’s news resources.
On November 17, 2021 TASS and Roscosmos signed a memorandum on cooperation to open the agency’s office on the ISS. Roscosmos’s cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin was the first special correspondent in space. His mission lasted twelve days.