NASA launches three astronauts to Space Station on Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft

On March 23, 2024, NASA launched three astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) through the Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Three crew members including NASA’s astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus.

The spacecraft will dock at the space station’s Prichal module around 11:09 a.m. on Monday, March 25.

Docking coverage will begin at 10:15 a.m. on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. NASA also will air coverage, starting at 1:15 p.m., of the crew welcome ceremony on NASA+ once they are aboard the orbital outpost.

The hatches between the station and the Soyuz open at 1:40 p.m. The crew member will join NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Alexander Grebenkin.

NASA revealed that Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will remain in orbit for 12 days. It will provide a ride home for O’Hara on Saturday, April 6, aboard Soyuz MS-24 for a parachute-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan.

Dayson on the other hand will spend six months aboard the station as an Expedition 70 and 71 flight engineer, returning to Earth in September with Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Roscosmos.