Historic spaceflight involving US and Russian astronauts to launch this week from Kazakhstan

Historic spaceflight involving US and Russian astronauts to launch this week from Kazakhstan

Image of a Soyuz space rocket. Credit: Twitter@BNNBreaking

US and Russian astronauts will blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan this week in the historic first cross-flight between NASA and Roscosmos.

As reported by the BNN Newsroom, Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, announced this Sunday, September 18, that a NASA team has arrived in Kazakhstan at the Russia-operated Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The team has travelled to Kazakhstan ahead of the scheduled flight to the International Space Station (ISS) this Wednesday, September 21.

https://twitter.com/BNNBreaking/status/1571652809048850432?s=20&t=h7lP5LhSXq01CbSxQvJcow

The joint spaceflight will involve two Russian cosmonauts along with US astronaut Frank Rubio. “A US delegation arrived in Baikonur to participate in the first cross-flight events on a Soyuz spacecraft – a NASA representative and a relative of US astronaut Frank Rubio”, said a Roscosmos statement.

Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin are the two cosmonauts taking part in this latest launch to the ISS. It will be the first time that a US astronaut has launched in a Russian spacecraft, with this one being a Soyuz MS-22. The delegation has reportedly already participated in the rollout of a Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle onto the cosmodrome’s launch pad. 

NASA and Roscosmos reached an agreement over this so-called cross-flight sharing programme. It entails US astronauts flying in a Russian spacecraft, and then later this Autumn, the second such seat-sharing flight in the programme is expected to take place.

It will involve a US Crew Dragon spacecraft and it is anticipated that Anna Kikina, Russia’s only active female cosmonaut, will be on that flight, as reported by newstracklive.com.

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Written by

Chris King

Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com

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