"Rocket of Victory" made a super-fast flight to the ISS
On April 8, the Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle, dubbed the " Rocket of Victory," was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome with the Soyuz MS-27 manned transport spacecraft carrying a Russian-American crew on board. The launch is dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. In just 3 hours and 11 minutes, Soyuz MS-27 docked with the Prichal module of the Russian segment of the International Space Station. As noted in the publication about the event in "Rossiyskaya Gazeta", until recently the standard duration of a flight to the ISS was two days - then the rocket made 34 orbits. The next fastest delivery of the crew took four orbits and about six hours. Now it's just over three hours, and experts are thinking of flying even faster. A record number of tourists arrived to watch the Rocket of Victory take off from Baikonur - at least two and a half thousand, according to Roscosmos.
The mission of the Soyuz MS-27 crew, consisting of Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov, Alexei Zubritsky and NASA astronaut Jonathan Kim, will last 245 days - two months longer than usual. The Russian cosmonauts are planning two spacewalks. They will receive two Russian space trucks and conduct more than 40 scientific experiments. NASA astronaut Jonathan Kim flew on the Soyuz under an agreement on cross-flights between Russia and the United States. The program has been extended for another year. It is reported that Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov has been included in the crew of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, the launch of which is planned for the second half of 2025. And in the first half of next year, Oleg Artemyev is scheduled to fly on Elon Musk's spacecraft. On the eve of the launch, Roscosmos and NASA discussed cooperation, including the development of manned programs in orbit after the ISS and the lunar program.
