A rocket with a superfast manned spacecraft launched from Baikonur

At 8:45:04 Moscow time, a launch vehicle was launched from launch pad No. 31 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome

"Soyuz-2.1a" with the manned transport spacecraft "Soyuz MS-17". In accordance with the flight cyclogram, at 08:53:53 Moscow time, the ship in normal mode separated from the third stage of the carrier in the target orbit, says Roscosmos.

On board the ship, the crew is Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov, Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins, the backup crew is Oleg Novitsky, Petr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hai.

The crew will spend 177 days in orbit.During this time, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov will conduct 55 scientific research and experiments, of which four — new. They will also have to continue searching for the location of the air leak in the transition compartment of the Zvezda module. The astronauts will make two spacewalks. One of them is planned for November 2020, the second in February 2021. Both to prepare for the undocking and flooding of the Pirs module next year. This is necessary to make room for the new Science module, which will launch in April 2021.

Soyuz MS-17 transport ship a little latermore than three hours after the launch, at 11:48:47 am Moscow time, it docked in normal mode to the Rassvet module of the Russian segment of the International Space Station. For the first time in the world, a manned spacecraft docked to the ISS, having completed only two orbits around the Earth. In addition, a new record was set for flights to the International Space Station - the total time from launch to docking of the Soyuz MS-17 was 3 hours and 3 minutes. The previous record belongs to the Progress MS-15 cargo ship, which took 3 hours and 18 minutes.

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