Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner and US astronaut Chris Cassady prepared to open the hatch of the International Space Station after arriving aboard a Soyuz spacecraft earlier on Thursday, NASA announced in a press release
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th April, 2020) Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner and US astronaut Chris Cassady prepared to open the hatch of the International Space Station after arriving aboard a Soyuz spacecraft earlier on Thursday, NASA announced in a press release.
"The Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft carrying Cassidy, along with Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, docked to the station's Poisk service module at 10:13 a.m. after a four-orbit, six-hour flight. Their Soyuz spacecraft launched at 4:05 a.m. EDT (1:05 p.m. Kazakhstan time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan," the release said.
The trio has been scheduled to open the hatches between their spacecraft and the space station and be welcomed aboard by NASA flight engineers Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir and Commander Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos.
Cassidy will become commander upon the departure of Skripochka, Morgan and Meir, who will return to Earth on April 17 aboard the Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft, which will land in Kazakhstan, the release said.
The three new crew members will be on hand in May, when NASA launches the first flight to the station from US soil since the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011. Since then, NASA has relied on the Russian Soyuz system to ferry US astronauts to and from the station, according to the release.
