US-Russian Crew Docks at the ISS After 6-Hour Flight

The Souyz MS-06 successfully docked at the ISS’s Poisk module, following a six-hour flight

Two NASA astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut safely arrived at the International Space Station after almost six hours of flight.

NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin left Kazakhstan at 5:17 p.m. EDT.

Aboard the Soyuz MS-06 space capsule, the three began their 6-hour trip to the ISS after a flawless launch sequence.

“Everything is nominal on board [and] the crew is doing fine,” a translator for Russia’s Mission Control Center in Moscow announced during a live webcast

After 5 hours and 38 minutes from the launch, the Soyuz safely arrived the the space station. “A series of burns over the next several hours will gradually raise their orbit as they chase down the space station,” NASA TV commentator Rob Navias said during the launch.

At the station, they met with the other half of Expedition 53 who arrived at the iSS in July. However, before they opened the hatch, the crew spent almost an hour and a half performing a series of tests on the Soyuz, making sure that everything was fine.

The three will spend about five months aboard aboard the orbiting laboratory, where they will work on “hundreds of experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science,” NASA officials declared

Even though both Acaba and Misurkin have been to space before, this trip is Vande Hei’s first time in space. He was selected for NASA’s astronaut corps back in 2006, and has served as an aquanaut aboard NASA’s Aquarius underwater laboratory during the NEEMO 18 mission.

Source: space.com