On Thanksgiving Day, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and two Russian cosmonauts, Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, embarked on a journey to the International Space Station (ISS). The trio launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft, marking the first crewed mission for the upgraded spacecraft, which boasts improved navigation, communication, and control systems.
Their six-month mission will primarily focus on scientific research, with around 3,000 experiments planned across a range of disciplines, including biology, biotechnology, physical science, and Earth science. The team will also conduct maintenance and upgrades to the station’s systems and perform spacewalks.
This mission marks Vande Hei’s second trip to the ISS, while it’s the third for Shkaplerov and the first for Dubrov. The crew will join the existing Expedition 64 team, which comprises NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi. However, Rubins, Ryzhikov, and Kud-Sverchkov are scheduled to return to Earth in April, leaving Vande Hei, Shkaplerov, and Dubrov to form the backbone of the new Expedition 65 crew.
This mission is particularly significant as it marks an end of an era for NASA. This is likely to be the last time that a NASA astronaut will fly to the ISS aboard a Russian spacecraft, following a decade-long arrangement that has seen NASA buying seats on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft after the retirement of the Space Shuttle program in 2011. Moving forward, NASA will start using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule to ferry astronauts to and from the station, with the first operational mission, Crew-1, already underway.
This shift is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, an initiative aiming to develop a new generation of U.S. spacecraft capable of ferrying crews to the ISS and other low-Earth orbit destinations. The program intends to end U.S. reliance on Russia for astronaut transportation, foster a commercial space industry, and pave the way for future Mars missions.
In terms of the safety measures taken for the mission, each crew member was put into quarantine for two weeks prior to the launch to prevent the possible spread of COVID-19 to the ISS. They also underwent multiple COVID-19 tests before their departure.
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