A Russian cosmonaut, an American astronaut and a Belarusian flight attendant turned spaceflight participant are getting ready for a mission to the Worldwide House Station. Their arrival on the orbiting outpost will mark the start of Expedition 71.
Liftoff onboard a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome is about for 4:21 p.m. MSK (9:21 a.m. ET, 1321 UTC). Oleg Novistky, Tracy Dyson and Marina Vasilevskaya make up the trio of the MS-25 mission.
They’re set to dock with the house station at about 11:39 p.m. MSK (12:39 p.m. ET, 1639 UTC). This would be the fourth journey to the ISS for Novitsky, the third journey for Dyson and the primary journey for Vasilevskaya.
Novitsky, 52, served because the commander for his three earlier flights and can maintain the place once more on this mission. He graduated from the Air Pressure Academy in Russia with a speciality in army unit administration and formations in 2006 and went on to graduate from the Russian Academy of Nationwide Financial system and Public Administration in 2015. He amassed greater than 700 hours of flight time in his profession.
He started his cosmonaut coaching in February 2007 and was named a check cosmonaut in July 2009.
Dr. Dyson grew up in California the place she would go on to amass a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from California State College (CSU) Fullerton in 1993 earlier than incomes her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the College of California at Davis (UC Davis) in 1997. She was chosen as an astronaut the next yr, in 1998.
Throughout a press conference main as much as the MS-25 mission, Dyson described her household’s response when she instructed them about her choice to the astronaut corps.
“My household was very excited that I utilized, however we had been all in shock that I used to be chosen,” Dyson stated.
In January, Dyson spoke with Spaceflight Now and House.com in a joint interview about her final time on orbit, throughout which she stored a diary of her ideas whereas on board station. She stated one reminiscence that stood out was her involvement in a trio of contingency spacewalks to take away and exchange a pump module that failed.
“It got here in direction of the top of my increment. And so, there was simply a variety of reflection on how our crew actually grew to become cohesive throughout that time frame and my ideas on that in addition to how the entire crew on the planet needed to rally collectively,” Dyson stated. “And that wasn’t simply the crew within the flight management room, or the techniques engineers at Johnson House Heart, however everybody across the globe who was affected by the truth that we misplaced one among our two cooling pumps.”
Along with that punctuation mark on her second journey to house, Dyson additionally holds the excellence of being the primary astronaut to make use of American Signal Language (ASL) to speak with the arduous of listening to again on Earth. She stated there aren’t plans for one thing much like that this time round as a result of she wished to maintain her schedule lighter.
“I actually wished to open myself up for no matter adjustments occur onboard as a result of surprising issues occurred earlier than and so, I used to be cautious to not signal myself up for too many issues exterior of what I do know I’d be doing on orbit,” Dyson stated.
Dyson additionally had the excellence of serving to develop the spacecraft communicator (CAPCOM) place for Boeing’s Starliner Mission Operations crew. As luck would have it, she might be on orbit to obtain the primary crewed flight of Starliner, which is about to launch in early Could.
“The 2 people who find themselves within the capsule are longtime associates of mine. Suni (Williams) and I am going manner again to after we interviewed for the astronaut program and we grew to become associates then during being chosen collectively,” Dyson stated. “We have now a variety of historical past, she and I, so I’m tremendous excited that, at this level in our careers, we would truly get to be in house collectively! So, that’s form of enjoyable.”
Additionally wanting ahead to having fun with time on station is the third member of the MS-25 crew: Marina Vasilevskaya. She carried out as an expert ballroom dancer for greater than 15 years earlier than pivoting careers and turning into a flight attendant.
In response to Russian state media, TASS, Vasilevskaya was one among six finalists chosen out of greater than 3,000 functions submitted to Presidium of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences of Belarus to be thought-about for spaceflight coaching.
She and Anastasia Lenkova obtained last approval in July 2023. Lenkonva was assigned to the backup crew for MS-25 together with Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Wagner and NASA astronaut Don Pettit.
Of the trio launching onboard the MS-25 mission, each Novitsky and Vasilevskaya will solely spend about 12 days on board the ISS. They’ll return to Earth on the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft alongside NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara.
Vasilevskaya will make historical past as the primary Belarusian girl to fly to house.
