Soyuz Docks With International Space Station, New Crew Steps Aboard ISS

The three new crew members for Expedition 50 are safely aboard the International Space Station (ISS), as per reports. The trio made their journey on the Soyuz MS-02 capsule to reach the space laboratory. The hatches of Soyuz capsule and the space station opened at 8:20 a.m. EDT on Friday, October 21.

The new astronauts to arrive at the ISS, and join the already present members of Expedition 49, comprise of Shane Kimbrough from NASA and Andrey Borisenko and Sergey Ryzhikov from Russian space agency Roscosmos. The spacecraft that the trio journeyed on docked with the Poisk module of the ISS at 5:52 a.m. The space station was reportedly flying 251 miles over southern Russia during the time of docking.

The three new inhabitants of ISS were welcomed aboard by Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Kate Rubins of NASA and Ivanishin of Roscosmos, who are members of Expedition 49 and have been living on the space lab since July. The new members, along with the astronauts who have already been living on the ISS, will actually be part of Expedition 49/50. The new crew will spend a little more than four months in their new home, before returning to Earth sometime during late February.

Incidentally, the launch of the Soyuz MS-02 spaceflight, which transported the new crew, was delayed by almost a month from September 23 to October 19. The delay was caused due to technical reasons. "Roscosmos has decided to move the launch of Soyuz MS-02 ship planned for September 23 due to technical reasons after holding tests on the Baikonur Cosmodrome," a Roscosmos official had stated when the initial date for the launch couldn't be adhered to. Expedition 50 will contribute to more than 250 research experiments going on the ISS in varied fields like physical sciences, Earth science, biology, technology development and human research.