New Crew Launches on Two-Day Journey to Space Station

Soyuz Launches 3 Astronauts, July 6, 2016
A Russian Soyuz rocket lifts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 6, 2016, carrying three crewmembers toward the International Space Station. (Image credit: NASA TV)

Three new crewmembers launched toward the International Space Station in an upgraded Russian Soyuz spacecraft today (July 6), beginning a two-day journey to the orbiting lab.

At 9:36 p.m. EDT (0136 on July 7 GMT), the trio — NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Takuya Onishi — successfully lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Russian Soyuz rocket. 

The three spaceflyers will spend their two-day trip testing the Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft's modified systems before docking with the station early Saturday morning (July 9). [Russia's Manned Soyuz Space Capsule Explained (Infographic)]

"The crew on board the Soyuz MS-01 are safely on orbit ... making their way to the International Space Station after a picture-perfect launch from a beautiful, clear day in Baikonur," NASA spokesperson Brandi Dean said during NASA TV's live broadcast.

"We are feeling fine; everything is good on board," Ivanishin reported shortly after launch, and the crew exchanged fist-bumps when the rocket's third stage detached, marking their safe arrival into orbit.

The new crewmembers are slated to stay aboard the station for about four months as part of the orbiting outpost's Expedition 48 and 49 missions. During their time in space, Rubins, Ivanishin and Onishi will help conduct more than 250 experiments in the fields of molecular and cellular biology, human physiology, fluid dynamics, materials science and physics. Some of the physics work will treat gravity as a variable, taking advantage of space's unique setting, NASA officials have said.

During a press conference in March, Rubins even mentioned hoping to try microgravity DNA-sequencing in her spare time.

Rubins is a molecular biologist and former "virus hunter"; she worked with West and Central African viruses before being selected as a NASA astronaut in 2009. Onishi, who is a trained pilot, was selected as an astronaut candidate in 2009 as well (by JAXA), and he was a part of NEEMO 15, a 2011 NASA research mission in which six "aquanauts" lived in an underwater lab testing new technologies for exploring an asteroid.

Ivanishin flew in the Russian Air Force before his selection by the Russian space agency, known as Roscosmos, in 2003, and he served as flight engineer on the long-duration Expedition 29/30 space station missions in 2011. (His last launch from Baikonur was on a snow-filled winter day).

The Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin and Japanese spaceflyer Takuya Onishi toward the International Space Station rises into the skies above Kazakhstan on July 6, 2016. (Image credit: NASA TV)

"The hardest aspect of being in space is to fly 34 orbits around Earth," Ivanishin said during a discussion with the press in March, referring to the two-day journey before the Soyuz spacecraft finally reaches the station. A shorter flight plan, which has been available since 2013, takes just 6 hours, and four orbits around the Earth, to reach the orbiting lab. Ivanishin's previous flight to the space station was the longer journey as well.

"The first difficult thing will be to survive this journey to the International Space Station," he said. "This part of the journey will be maybe less pleasant." 

The upgraded Soyuz spacecraft, which the spacefliers will test out on their journey, includes additional shielding on its habitation module, a fifth battery assembly to increase its electrical power reserves, increased efficiency and more surface area for the solar panels, a new thruster configuration and several upgrades to its communications and command systems, said Mark Bowman, chief engineer in the Soyuz branch of NASA's Astronaut Office, during a NASA TV broadcast.

The Soyuz spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at the space station and dock at 12:12 a.m. EDT (0412 GMT) on Saturday (July 9), and the hatches connecting the two vessels should open at around 2:50 a.m. EDT (0650 GMT) that day, NASA officials have said. The new crewmembers will then be greeted by the station's present inhabitants: the station's commander, NASA astronaut Jeff Williams, and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin. (The arrival, hatch opening and welcome ceremony will stream live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV.)

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin and JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi pose during training before their July 6 launch to the International Space Station. Rubins and Onishi are both first-time fliers. (Image credit: NASA Johnson via Flickr)

And then the real work will begin.

"One of the things that's the most difficult is time," Rubins said in a video interview with Space.com last month. "There are so many exciting things to do. There are amazing experiments that you want to do. There are pictures you want to take out of the window. Just being able to fit that in, it feels like there are not quite enough hours in the day to be able to do everything we want to do aboard space station.

"We've got so much stuff to do, and it's all going to be pretty interesting and incredible," she added.

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Sarah Lewin
Associate Editor

Sarah Lewin started writing for Space.com in June of 2015 as a Staff Writer and became Associate Editor in 2019 . Her work has been featured by Scientific American, IEEE Spectrum, Quanta Magazine, Wired, The Scientist, Science Friday and WGBH's Inside NOVA. Sarah has an MA from NYU's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program and an AB in mathematics from Brown University. When not writing, reading or thinking about space, Sarah enjoys musical theatre and mathematical papercraft. She is currently Assistant News Editor at Scientific American. You can follow her on Twitter @SarahExplains.