posted 04-17-2017 10:31 AM               

Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft, crew poised for launch

Soyuz MS-04 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos and flight engineer Jack Fischer of NASA are set to launch to the International Space Station on Thursday (April 20) at 2:13 a.m. CDT (0713 GMT or 1:13 p.m. local) from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Credit: NASA/

They will dock the Soyuz to the station's Poisk module at 8:23 a.m CDT (1323 GMT) that same day following a four-orbit rendezvous.

About two hours later, the hatches between the Soyuz and space station will open and Yurchikhin and Fischer will be greeted by ISS Expedition 51 commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineers Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency (ESA).

Fischer, making his first spaceflight, and Yurchikhin, a veteran of four missions, will spend more than four months on the orbiting laboratory before returning to Earth with Whitson in early September.

On Monday (April 17), the Soyuz-FG rocket topped with Soyuz MS-04 was rolled out to the launch pad by train and erected into position.

posted 04-20-2017 02:40 AM               

Astronaut and cosmonaut launch to space station on Russia's Soyuz MS-04

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).

posted 04-20-2017 08:19 AM               

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.

posted 09-02-2017 05:15 PM               

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).

posted 09-02-2017 08:22 PM               

Record-setting NASA astronaut lands with space station crewmates on Soyuz MS-04

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).