ISS, March 25. /TASS/. The first spaceflight participant from the Republic of Belarus, Marina Vasilevskaya, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson have moved from the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS), as follows from a video streamed by Roscosmos.
They were welcomed by Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko (TASS special correspondent on the ISS), Nikolay Chub and Alexander Grebenkin, and NASA astronauts Loral O'Hara, Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick and Jeanette Epps.
The Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle with the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Saturday at 15:36 p.m. Moscow time (12:36 p.m. GMT). Initially, Roscosmos planned to launch the spacecraft on Thursday, March 21, as the ballistic conditions would have allowed for an ultra-fast two-orbit flight to the ISS lasting just 3.5 hours. However, 20 seconds before liftoff, the launch was aborted automatically and had to be postponed until Saturday. The delay caused a revision of the rendezvous pattern. It took the cosmonauts two days to reach the orbital outpost.
First Belarusian woman in space
When the Soyuz MS-25 was launched into orbit on Thursday, Marina Vasilevskaya became the first citizen of independent Belarus to go in space. Anastasia Lenkova was her standby.
On board the ISS Vasilevskaya will carry out a research program of five experiments and two works in the field of medicine, biology, physiology and remote sensing of the Earth. She will conduct spectral photo and video imaging of the Earth’s surface and conduct experiments Lactoferrin and Uragan.
Earlier, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree On the status of the Belarusian Cosmonaut to award such a status to the Belarussian citizen who has made a space flight, as well as the standby. In Roscosmos news releases, Vasilevskaya and Lenkova are referred to as space flight participants.