Live launch coverage is underway on NASA Television and the agency’s website for the targeted lift off at 1:45 a.m. EDT (10:45 a.m. in Baikonur), of a Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos will begin a three-hour journey to the International Space Station. Their journey will be the first time a Soyuz crew has taken the fast-track, two-orbit rendezvous path to the space station.
The new crew members will dock to the station’s Rassvet module at 4:52 a.m. They will join Expedition 63 Commander Chris Cassidy of NASA and Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, who will complete their station mission and land on Earth on the steppe of Kazakhstan Wednesday, Oct. 21, U.S. time, in the Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft that brought them to the station on April 9.
About two hours after docking, hatches between the Soyuz and the station will open, and the six crew members will greet each other.
For launch coverage and more information about the mission, visit: https://blogs-stage-old.nasawestprime.com/spacestation/. Get space station news, images and features via social media on Instagram at: @iss, ISS on Facebook, and on Twitter @Space_Station and @ISS_Research.