A Russian spacecraft with three astronauts has successfully docked at the International Space Station.
The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft carrying Nasa astronaut Tracy Dyson, Russian Oleg Novitsky and Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus reached the space outpost after Saturday’s blast-off from the Russian-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan that followed an aborted launch attempt two days earlier.
Thursday’s attempted launch was halted by an automatic safety system about 20 seconds before the scheduled lift-off.
The Soyuz spacecraft is now part of the @Space_Station. Docking occurred at 11:03am ET (1503 UTC).
Up next at 1:15pm ET (1715 UTC), watch the hatches open. pic.twitter.com/zQxWrMG4O9— NASA (@NASA) March 25, 2024
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The head of the Russian space agency, Yuri Borisov, said the aborted launch was triggered by a voltage drop in a power source.
The three astronauts join the station’s crew consisting of Nasa astronauts Loral O’Hara, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Russians Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Alexander Grebenkin.
Mr Novitsky, Ms Vasilevskaya and Ms O’Hara will return to Earth on April 6.
The space station, which has served as a symbol of post-Cold War international cooperation, is now one of the last remaining areas of collaboration between Russia and the West amid tensions over Moscow’s military action in Ukraine.
Nasa and its partners hope to continue operating the orbiting outpost until 2030.
