BAIKONUR SPACE CENTER /Kazakhstan/, March 21. /TASS/. Russia’s Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft will take three new crew members to the International Space Station (ISS), including the first Belarusian participant in space flights Marina Vasilevskaya.
The launch is scheduled for 4:21 p.m. Moscow time [1:21 p.m. GMT], from Launch Pad 31 (Vostok) of the Baikonur space center. The spacecraft is expected to reach the orbit approximately nine minutes later. The journey to the ISS will be carried out under the two-orbit flight scheme, so the docking with the Prichal module is expected at approximately 7:40 p.m. Moscow time (4:40 p.m. GMT).
Apart from Vasilevskaya, the spacecraft will carry Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson. Belarus’ Anastasia Lenkova, Russia’s Ivan Vagner and the oldest active NASA astronaut Donald Pettit will be on standby.
Novitsky and Vasilevskaya will stay aboard the ISS for about two weeks and return on April 2 on the Soyuz MS-24 with NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara. Dyson's mission will last until September. She will return to Earth with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko (TASS special correspondent on the ISS) and Nikolay Chub.
Vasilevskaya’s mission will include a research program of five studies and two public researches in the spheres of medicine, biology, physiology and remote sensing of the Earth. She will perform a spectral video and photo imaging of the Earth’s surface and carry out two scientific experiments.
The launch was devoted to first man in space Yuri Gagarin, who would have turned 90 earlier this month. His artistic image was painted on the carrier rocket’s nose cone.
Dozens of tourists from Russia and abroad arrived at the space facility to see the launch with their own eyes, including a group of tourists from Vietnam.