BAIKONUR COSMODROME /Kazakhstan/, September 15. /TASS/: The Soyuz MS-24 manned spacecraft, which was blasted off from the Baikonur spaceport on Friday, has separated from the third stage of the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket, a TASS correspondent reported.
The spacecraft’s crew are Oleg Kononenko, deputy chief of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center and commander of the Roscosmos cosmonaut team, who will become a fourth TASS special correspondent on the orbital outpost orbit, cosmonaut Nikolay Chub and NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara.
The Soyuz MS-24 spaceship is expected to dock to the Rassvet module (MIM-1) of the International Space Station’s (ISS) Russian segment at about 9:57 p.m. Moscow time.
O’Hara will return to Earth aboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft in the spring of 2024, while the space mission of Kononenko and Chub will last until September next year. Upon completing their mission, the Russian cosmonauts will return to Earth aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft. Kononenko may become the Earth’s first human to spend over 1,000 days in space as part of his year-long expedition.
The spacecraft is also loaded with around 120 kg of payload, including photo and video equipment, food rations, personal items and equipment for scientific experiments.
Over 70 experiments are planned for the upcoming expedition, 7 of them will be carried for the first time. Besides, Kononenko and Chub are expected to perform four spacewalks.
Kononenko will become the fourth TASS special reporter on board the station. He will carry the news agency’s space mascot toy Inotasya, whose design and name was chosen by the TASS staff.
