File photo from Roscosmos archives
KOROLYOV, 25 March (BelTA) – The Soyuz MS-25 manned spacecraft
with Belarus’ first spacefarer Marina Vasilevskaya on board has
successfully docked to the International Space Station, BelTA reports
from the Roscosmos Mission Control Center.
“It has touched down,” announced the Mission Control Center commentator, thereby confirming that the docking took place normally in automatic mode. The docking process was supervised by Roscosmos Head Yuri Borisov.
The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft is crewed by Belarus’ space flight participant Marina Vasilevskaya, spacecraft commander, Belarusian national Oleg Novitsky and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson.
The docking took place at 18:03 Minsk time. Because of the aborted launch attempt on 21 March and rescheduling the flight for 23 March, the crew had to wait for docking for more than two days. If the launch had gone as scheduled, the journey would have been much shorter, requiring only two orbits. Instead, the spacecraft had to undertake a two-day, 34-orbit trip to the space station.
Soyuz MS-25 docked at the port of the Earth-facing Prichal Node Module, a part of the Russian ISS Segment. After docking, the cosmonauts will start preparing for the transition to the ISS. This process takes about two hours: it is necessary to equalize the pressure on the station and the spacecraft, to check the tightness of the docking, to carry out a number of other important procedures. After that the process of opening the transition hatches begins.
“It has touched down,” announced the Mission Control Center commentator, thereby confirming that the docking took place normally in automatic mode. The docking process was supervised by Roscosmos Head Yuri Borisov.
The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft is crewed by Belarus’ space flight participant Marina Vasilevskaya, spacecraft commander, Belarusian national Oleg Novitsky and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson.
The docking took place at 18:03 Minsk time. Because of the aborted launch attempt on 21 March and rescheduling the flight for 23 March, the crew had to wait for docking for more than two days. If the launch had gone as scheduled, the journey would have been much shorter, requiring only two orbits. Instead, the spacecraft had to undertake a two-day, 34-orbit trip to the space station.
Soyuz MS-25 docked at the port of the Earth-facing Prichal Node Module, a part of the Russian ISS Segment. After docking, the cosmonauts will start preparing for the transition to the ISS. This process takes about two hours: it is necessary to equalize the pressure on the station and the spacecraft, to check the tightness of the docking, to carry out a number of other important procedures. After that the process of opening the transition hatches begins.
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