The first crew of the new Russian-US cross-flight program launched from Baikonur to the ISS

The Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle carrying the Soyuz MS-22 transport manned spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 16:54 to the ISS on Wednesday at 16:54.

The launch is broadcast by Roscosmos

The rocket was launched normally, from the 31st site of Baikonur.

On board the spacecraft are cosmonauts Sergei Prokopiev, Dmitry Petelin and astronaut Francisco Rubio.

They will carry out the first flight under the new agreement on cross-flights to the ISS, concluded by the Russian Federation and the United States.

In October, the American spacecraft Crew Dragon will be launched, its crew will include Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina.

It is expected that the duration of the flight of a manned spacecraft, which will pass through an ultra-fast two-orbit rendezvous pattern with the station, will take 3 hours and 16 minutes.

Roscosmos expects the docking of the Soyuz with the small research module Rassvet of the Russian segment of the ISS will take place at 20:11 on Wednesday.

The duration of the expedition flight will be 188 days, the end of the mission should take place on March 28, 2023. The commander of the Soyuz, cosmonaut Prokopiev, reported that the crew would have to make 5 spacewalks.

The cross scheme, according to which Russian cosmonauts are included in the crews of American spacecraft, and American astronauts are included in the crews of Russian ones, operated in the first years of the ISS operation. She was turned off after the accident of the Columbia shuttle. From 2011 to 2020, manned flights to the ISS were carried out only on Russian spacecraft.

The agreement under which the ship was launched today provides for three joint flights of cosmonauts and astronauts, but it can be extended.

The space shuttle Columbia crashed on February 1, 2003. After a 16-day flight, the shuttle was returning to Earth, NASA lost contact with it 16 minutes before the proposed landing in Florida. Eyewitnesses filmed the burning debris at an altitude of about 63 kilometers. All 7 crew members, consisting of NASA astronauts, died.