The Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle with the Soyuz MS-27 manned spacecraft and three crew members launched from pad No. 31 (Vostok) of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Approximately nine minutes after launch, the ship entered the designated orbit and headed for the International Space Station. The flight will follow a two-orbit approach scheme, and docking with the Prichal orbital station module is scheduled for approximately 12:04 Moscow time.
Image source: “Roskosmos”
The crew of the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft includes cosmonauts of the Roscosmos state corporation Alexey Zubritsky and Sergey Ryzhikov, as well as astronaut of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States Jonny Kim. All of them will be participants in the 73rd long-term expedition to the ISS, within the framework of which 50 scientific experiments are planned. This fall, Zubritsky and Ryzhikov will also conduct two spacewalks.
The launch of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket is timed to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, as evidenced by the images dedicated to the holiday applied to the carrier’s body. In addition to this, the carrier received the title “Victory Rocket”. It is noted that a record number of tourists – at least 2.5 thousand people – arrived at Baikonur to watch the launch of the rocket. In Moscow, the broadcast of the launch could be seen at the Cosmonautics Museum.