All-Russian cosmonaut crew launches to Worldwide Area Station

Cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov lifted off aboard a Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad in Kazakhstan at 11:55 a.m. ET. The crew’s launch and journey to the house station, which ought to take simply over three hours, will likely be streamed stay on NASA’s website.

Usually, Russian Soyuz launches embrace two cosmonauts and no less than one NASA astronaut or one other worldwide companion as a result of a crew swap settlement between Russian house company Roscosmos and different businesses.

It is not the primary time an all-Russian mission has occurred — a Russian crew flew to the station in October to movie the primary film in house.

Though this cosmonaut launch happens at a time when geopolitical tensions are mounting, the absence of different nations’ involvement is coincidental and based mostly on a previous settlement between NASA and Roscosmos to a delayed crew swap for future missions in 2022.

“We nonetheless plan to work the crew swap,” stated Joel Montalbano, the supervisor of NASA’s Worldwide Area Station program, throughout a press convention Monday. “And so we nonetheless have scheduled coaching for Rocosmos to come back to Houston, Hawthorne and our group to go over to Star Metropolis and practice for the Soyuz.

“So far as interactions with the White Home — they’re conscious that we’re persevering with these operations. We get questions every so often, and we answered them, however right this moment we’re persevering with to work these agreements.”

Montalbano didn’t reply to a query about extending the ISS partnership with Russia to 2030.

When requested whether or not the present tensions on Earth have translated to the crew aboard the house station, Montalbano stated, “Whenever you’re in house, there isn’t any borders. You do not see you do not see nation strains or state strains.”

“The groups proceed to work collectively. Are they conscious of what is going on on Earth? Completely. Astronauts and cosmonauts are a few of the {most professional} teams you may ever see. They proceed to function properly, and there is actually no rigidity with the group. That is what they have been skilled to do they usually’re up there doing that job.”

Returning to Earth

On March 30, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei is about to return to Earth alongside Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov.

Vande Hei — who launched to the ISS in April 2021 — surpassed NASA astronaut Scott Kelly’s file of 340 days in house on March 15, and when he lands in Kazakhstan, he can have set a brand new file for the period of time a human has spent in house: 355 days.

The house company sought to reaffirm Monday that it is nonetheless working carefully with Russian house company Rocosmos on the Worldwide Area Station, regardless of mounting geopolitical tensions.

Joint operations between NASA and Roscosmos on the Russian amenities at Baikonur, Kazakhstan, “proceed to go properly,” based on Montalbano. “I can let you know for certain Mark [Vande Hei] is coming residence” on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, Montalbano stated Monday. “We’re in communication with our Russian colleagues, there isn’t any fuzz on that.”

NASA officers didn’t say there could be any important adjustments to plans to get Vande Hei again to the US after he lands. He’ll journey residence by way of a Gulfstream jet, as different US astronauts have earlier than him.

For practically a decade, Russia’s Soyuz automobiles had been the one technique of getting astronauts to and from the house station. However that reliance ended after SpaceX debuted its Crew Dragon capsule in 2020, and the US regained human spaceflight capabilities.

When Montalbano was requested by CNN’s Kristin Fisher about whether or not NASA has contingency plans in place if the US-Russia relationship additional deteriorates, he stated: “The Worldwide Area Station, I am going to let you know, it has been the flagship mannequin for worldwide cooperation. We talked earlier (about) the interdependency that we have now between the US and the Russian section. That’s the reason we’re in a position to function and the way we’re working…At the moment there isn’t any indication from our Russian companions that they wish to do something completely different. So we’re planning to proceed operations as we’re right this moment.”