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Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft with Belarusian national on board delivered into orbit

The spacecraft is expected to dock with the Prichal nodal module of the International Space Station at 6:10 p.m.

BAIKONUR SPACEPORT /Kazakhstan/, March 23. /TASS/. The Soyuz MS-25 crewed spaceship, which blasted off from the Baikonur spaceport earlier on Saturday, has separated from the third stage of the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket, a TASS correspondent reported from the spaceport.

The spacecraft is expected to dock with the Prichal nodal module of the International Space Station (ISS) at 6:10 p.m. Moscow time (3:10 p.m. GMT) on March 25.

The three member crew includes Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus, the country’s first space mission member, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson.

Novitsky and Vasilevskaya will spend 12 days at the orbital outpost. They are expected to return to Earth aboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft together with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara on April 6. Dyson’s space mission will last until September; she will return to Earth with Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko (TASS special correspondent at the ISS) and Nikolay Chub.

The space launch was initially scheduled for Thursday but was automatically aborted seconds before liftoff because of a problem with a chemical power source.

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