A Soyuz rocket blasted off on Wednesday for the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, with an American and two Russians on board. A mission that intervenes in the midst of tensions related to the offensive in Ukraine.
“Stability is good … crew feels good,” said a NASA commentator after liftoff, broadcast live jointly on the sites of the US and Russian space agencies.
US-Russian relations hit rock bottom
The Russian rocket took off as scheduled at 3:54 p.m. Paris time from the steppes of Kazakhstan and rose in a trail of fire into a darkened sky, images show.
This mission by American Frank Rubio of NASA and Russians Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitri Peteline of the Russian space agency Roscosmos represents a rare example of cooperation between Moscow and Washington, when their relations are at their lowest point.
Frank Rubio is the first American astronaut to travel to the ISS aboard a Russian rocket since the beginning of the Russian military intervention in Ukraine that began on February 24.
A three hour drive
The crew will spend six months aboard the ISS, where they will meet Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemiev, Denis Matveïev and Sergei Korsakov, American astronauts Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren and Jessica Watkins, and Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.
This is the first flight for Frank Rubio and Dmitri Peteline, and the second for Sergei Prokopiev. Docking with the Russian segment of the ISS is scheduled after a three-hour Soyuz journey.
Source: BFM TV
