Soyuz MS-12 reaches ISS, Expedition 59 begins

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Soyuz MS-12 reaches ISS, Expedition 59 begins

After a successful launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft rendezvoused and docked with the International Space Station some six hours later.

Aboard Soyuz MS-12 was Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin and NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch. The spacecraft’s arrival at the Earth-facing port of the Rassvet module at 01:01 UTC March 15 doubled the outpost’s crew size and set the stage for a busy next couple of weeks of spacewalks and science.

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Booster collision blamed for Soyuz MS-10 failure

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Booster collision blamed for Soyuz MS-10 failure

It’s been more than two weeks since then in-flight abort of the Soyuz MS-10 mission with Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague. Now the pieces of the mishap puzzle are starting to trickle in.

On Oct. 11, 2018, Ovchinin and Hague were strapped into their Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft atop a Soyuz-FG rocket in Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, for a planned six-month stay at the International Space Station. It was to be Ovchinin’s second spaceflight and Hague’s first.

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Soyuz trio blaze through atmosphere to land in Kazakhstan

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Soyuz trio blaze through atmosphere to land in Kazakhstan

After orbiting Earth for 172 days, three members the International Space Station’s Expedition 48 crew undocked their Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft from the outpost and barreled through the atmosphere a couple hours later to land on the Steppe of Kazakhstan.

The official landing time was 09:13 EDT Sept. 6 (01:13 GMT Sept. 7) southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. Russian search and recovery teams circling the area in helicopters then landed near the capsule to help NASA astronaut Jeff Williams, and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Skripochka and Aleksey Ovchinin out of the Soyuz after their nearly six-month stay in at the orbiting laboratory.

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