Multinational crew lifts off for International Space Station
A multinational crew made up of an American, a Russian and the first space traveller from the United Arab Emirates blasted off successfully on Wednesday for a mission on the International Space Station.
A Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off as scheduled from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and entered a designated orbit en route to the station.
3-2-1… LIFTOFF! 🚀 At 9:57am ET, @Astro_Jessica 🇺🇸, cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka 🇷🇺 & spaceflight participant Hazzaa Ali Almansoori 🇦🇪 launched on a journey to their new home aboard the @Space_Station. Tune in: https://t.co/x0oE4sFcsu pic.twitter.com/ETKVudGbNe
— NASA (@NASA) September 25, 2019
Nasa astronaut Jessica Meir, Oleg Skripochka of Russian space agency Roscosmos, and Hazzaa Ali Almansoori from the UAE are set to dock at the orbiting outpost six hours later.
A trio of space travelers, including @Astro_Jessica, is now safely on orbit and solar arrays have successfully deployed on their Soyuz spacecraft. Get updates about their six-hour journey to the @Space_Station: https://t.co/FRrjhIw77o pic.twitter.com/uJ5jfL1s38
— NASA (@NASA) September 25, 2019
The mission is the third spaceflight for Skripochka and the first for both Meir and Almansoori, who is on an eight-day mission under a contract between the UAE and Roscosmos.
The trio will join the crew already on the International Space Station: Russians Alexey Ovchinin and Alexander Skvortsov, NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Nick Hague and Andrew Morgan and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano.
Hague and Ovchinin are scheduled to wrap up a mission of more than 200 days on October 3 and return to Earth with Almansoori.
Meir and Skripochka plan to stay for more than six months.
