Soyuz spacecraft carrying three astronauts launches to space station

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying three crew members launched to the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Saturday, March 23.

The crew including NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus are safely in orbit. The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft will dock to the space station's Prichal module about 11:09 a.m. Monday, March 25. The hatches between the Soyuz and the station will open at about 1:40 p.m. the same day.

Following the hatch opening, the trio will join the crew already living and working aboard the orbiting laboratory. These include NASA astronauts Loral O'Hara, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Alexander Grebenkin.

Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will spend 12 days aboard the station, before returning home on Saturday, April 6, aboard Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft. Dyson will stay for six months as an Expedition 70 and 71 flight engineer, before returning to Earth in September with Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Roscosmos, who will complete a year-long mission on the space station.

Liftoff! NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and Belarus spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya begin their journey to @Space_Station. 📷: https://t.co/TMO3G0eIai pic.twitter.com/rvVAlA5Uj8

— NASA HQ PHOTO (@nasahqphoto) March 23, 2024