Crew members of the International Space Station will take a short ride in a Soyuz spacecraft today (March 19), relocating it to make way for the arrival of another Soyuz next month. And you can watch the whole thing live!
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and two Russian cosmonauts, Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, will disconnect the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft today at 12:38 a.m. EDT (1638 GMT), according to a statement from NASALive coverage begins at 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT), and you can watch it live here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV, or directly through the space agency
The trio will climb into the Soyuz, disconnect the Earth-facing gate from the station’s Rassvet module, which is primarily used for cargo storage and payload operations, and then fly it to the space-facing Poisk gate. , where the crew will fly. lock the vehicle at 1:07 a.m. EDT (1707 GMT). The entire space flight takes about 30 minutes.
Related: The International Space Station
This Soyuz maneuver is the first displacement flight since August 2019 and the 15th Soyuz redocking effort overall. The newly cleared Rassvet gate will accommodate another Soyuz, which will be launched towards the orbit lab on April 9.
That incoming spacecraft will carry NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, who may remain on the space station for up to one year, and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov.
Rubins, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov will return to Earth shortly after the newcomers arrive and leave the laboratory in orbit on April 17. They will travel in their trusted Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft, originally she launched to the space station in October 2020.
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