New Crew Arrives At The International Space Station

Following two days orbiting Earth, the Soyuz spacecraft carrying astronauts Rubins, Onishi and Ivanishin arrived at the International Space Station. The trio oversaw a straight-forward docking in the early hours of Saturday as the automated docking system expertly guided the Soyuz spacecraft in.
 
Shortly after sunrise at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, astronauts Katie Rubins, Anatoly Ivanishin and Tayuka Onishi blasted off to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz rocket. The ascent was as smooth as could be imagined, and the spacecraft was separated in a stable orbit less than nine minutes after liftoff. From there, the crew spent two days in orbit catching up to the ISS and testing systems aboard the newly upgraded Soyuz spacecraft. Upon arrival at the Space Station, the capsule manoeuvred its way to the docking port using its upgraded Kurs system and docked successfully. Upon opening the hatch, Expedition 47 crew members Williams, Ovchinin and Skripochka were there to greet them into their new home for the next few months.

The trio will stay in space for roughly four months, working on scientific research and essential station servicing throughout their stay above Earth. The crew will help install the station’s first international docking adapter set to be launched in the trunk of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft in July. The spacecraft will also carry various new scientific experiments which the crew will help carry out. These investigations will cover bone loss, DNA sequencing in space, temperature regulation in spacecraft, and much, much more. Additionally, the crew will also help unload Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft and the Russian Progress resupply vehicle during their time aboard the Station.
 
The next launch to the ISS is the aforementioned SpaceX CRS-9 resupply mission. The Falcon 9 is set to liftoff on July 18 and the launch will of course be covered live at @CosmosRevealed!