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Two US astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut are expected to join the crew aboard the International Space Station on Thursday, March 14, 2019. The arrival of the trio will bring back to six the laboratory's population in orbit, including three NASA astronauts . This launch will also mark the fourth expedition crew with two female astronauts. Live coverage will be broadcast on NASA TV and on the agency's website.
NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch, as well as cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, are expected to take off aboard the Soyuz MS-12 space shuttle at 15:14. EDT (12:14 – 15 March, Kazakhstan time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a six-hour commute to the train station.
New crew members will dock at Rassvet at 21:07. Expedition 59 will officially begin at the time of berthing.
About two hours later, the connections between the Soyuz and the station will open and the new residents will be greeted by NASA astronaut Anne McClain, the station's commander, Oleg Kononenko of Roscosmos, and David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency. The current three-person crew has just welcomed the first commercial US crewed vehicle when it arrived at the station on March 3, 2019, in the middle of a busy schedule of scientific research and operations since its arrived in December 2018.
Anne C. McClain, NASA astronaut.
The Expedition 59 launch and docking activities coverage is as follows (every hour EDT):
Thursday, March 14, 2019:
- 14h – Launch cover of Soyuz MS-12 (launch at 15:14)
- 20h45 – Mooring coverage (mooring planned at 21h07)
- 22:30. – Opening of the hatch and welcome blanket
A full series of videos of the pre-launch activities of the crew at Baikonur will be broadcast on NASA TV the days before the launch.
The crew members of Expeditions 59 and 60 will continue their work on hundreds of experiments in Biology, Biotechnology, Physical Sciences and Earth Sciences aboard the only microgravity laboratory occupied for life by the L & # 39; humanity.
McClain, Saint-Jacques, The Hague and Koch are also scheduled for the first outings in their career space to further modernize the orbital laboratory. McClain and Hague are scheduled to begin upgrades to the electrical system on March 22, 2019, and McClain and Koch will complete the power channel upgrades at two stations during an outing in space. It will be the very first outing in space with female walkers. The Hague and Santiago will install equipment for a future scientific platform during an outing in space.
Hague and Ovchinin conclude a trip that was shortened on October 11, 2019, when a problem of reinforced separation with the first floor of their Soyuz rocket had triggered an abandonment of the launch two minutes after the start of the flight. A few minutes later, they landed safely after reaching the confines of space. They were subsequently reassigned after the launch of McClain, Kononenko and Saint-Jacques in early December 2018. This flight will be the third one for Koch. Hague, Koch and McClain belong to NASA's class of astronauts in 2013, half of whom were women – the highest percentage of female astronaut candidates ever selected for a class.
Check out the full NASA TV channel program and video streaming information at: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
Follow the news of the International Space Station, its research and its crews at the following address: http://www.nasa.gov/station
Get the latest news, images and features of the station on Instagram and Twitter at the following address: http://instagram.com/iss
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