An astronaut and a cosmonaut launched on the first two-person spaceflight in 14 years, bound for a five month stay on the International Space Station.
Astronaut Jack Fischer with NASA and cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos lifted off on Russia's Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft, atop a Soyuz-FG rocket, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:13 a.m. EDT (0713 GMT; 1:13 p.m. local time) Thursday. Launched on a "fast-track," six-orbit rendezvous, they are set to dock the Soyuz at the station's Poisk module at 9:23 a.m. EDT (1323 GMT).
Robert Pearlman
Soyuz MS-04 docks to space station
Russia's Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft docked to the Poisk module at the International Space Station on Thursday (April 20) at 8:18 a.m. CDT (1318 GMT) as the vehicles were 250 miles above the Earth, over the northern Atlantic Ocean.
Robert Pearlman
Soyuz MS-04 undocks from space station
Roscosmos cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and NASA astronauts Jack Fischer and Peggy Whitson undocked their Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft from the Poisk module at the International Space Station at 4:58 p.m. CDT (2158 GMT) Saturday (Sept. 2), beginning their return to Earth.
A four-minute, 38-second deorbit burn is scheduled for 7:29 p.m. CDT (0029 GMT), setting up a landing near Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan at 8:21:50 p.m. CDT (0121:50 GMT).
A record-setting U.S. astronaut and two of her fellow crewmates returned from the International Space Station on Saturday (Sept. 2), safely landing aboard a Russian spacecraft on the steppe of Kazakhstan.
Peggy Whitson, who now has more time in space than any other American or woman worldwide, landed on Earth with cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and astronaut Jack Fischer on Soyuz MS-04. The trio descended under a parachute to a touch down at 8:21 p.m. CDT (0121 GMT or 7:21 a.m. Kazakh time Sep. 3).
advertisement