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Belarus’ first woman cosmonaut to join expedition to ISS

The crew of the 21st expedition to the ISS will also include Oleg Novitsky, the crew’s commander, as well as NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, a flight engineer

MOSCOW, May 29. /TASS/. Female Belarusian cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya will join the main crew of the 21st expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), according to the Yu. A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.

On site at the Cosmonaut Training Center, Vasilevskaya is listed as a member of the space mission. The crew will also include Oleg Novitsky, the crew’s commander, as well as NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, a flight engineer.

Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Vagner, female Belarusian cosmonaut Anastasia Lenkova and NASA astronaut Donald Roy Pettit are the standby crew.

The Belarusian side chose six candidates to potentially fly to the ISS in 2022. The actual preparations for the flight of the main and back-up candidates will begin in Russia on a schedule to be agreed with Roscosmos. In late February, Roscosmos reported that the flight of the first Belarusian female cosmonaut, planned for earlier in 2023, would be postponed until spring 2024 after the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft was damaged in December of last year.

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