Houston, Texas – A team comprising NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and Belarusian spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya successfully launched on a Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The launch took place at 8:36 a.m. EDT on Saturday, March 23, after a brief delay due to an electrical issue that resulted in the mission being rescheduled from March 21.
Their mission to the ISS involves docking to the space station’s Prichal module on the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft. Docking coverage will be available on various platforms including NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Following docking, there will be a crew welcome ceremony on NASA+.
Once aboard the space station, the new crew members will join the existing team of astronauts and cosmonauts living and working on the ISS. Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya are scheduled to stay aboard the station for 12 days, providing the ride home for NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara on April 6 aboard Soyuz MS-24 for a parachute-assisted landing in Kazakhstan.
Dyson, as part of Expedition 70 and 71, will spend six months aboard the station as a flight engineer, returning to Earth in September with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, concluding their year-long mission. This mission marks the third spaceflight for Dyson, the fourth for Novitskiy, and the first for Vasilevskaya.
Overall, the successful launch signifies another important step in international space cooperation and exploration efforts. It highlights the ongoing collaboration between space agencies like NASA and Roscosmos in advancing scientific research and human space exploration beyond Earth.