Soyuz transports new crew to ISS

BREMEN, Germany — A Soyuz spacecraft delivered two Russian cosmonauts and one American astronaut to the International Space Station Nov. 27 for an eight-month stay.

A Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:27 a.m. Eastern, placing the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft into orbit nine minutes later. The spacecraft docked with the station’s Rassvet module at 7:34 a.m. Eastern.

On board the Soyuz was commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and fellow Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Mikaev, along with NASA astronaut Chris Williams. They will remain on the station to summer 2026.

It is the first flight for Wiliams and Mikayev and the second for Kud-Sverchkov. They are replacing Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky from Roscosmos and Jonny Kim from NASA, who will return on the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft Dec. 8.

The arrival of the new Soyuz required moving another spacecraft at the station. Before the launch, station controllers used the robotic arm to move the NG-23 Cygnus spacecraft from its berthing port on the Unity module. The spacecraft remains attached to the arm away from the port.

NASA officials said before the Cygnus launch in September that the maneuver would be needed to avoid any conflicts between Soyuz and Cygnus, located on neighboring ports. “It has a corridor versus a straight line when it comes in,” Dina Contella, NASA ISS deputy program manager, said of Soyuz at a Sept. 12 briefing. If the spacecraft were to deviate slightly in that corridor, thruster firings could impinge on Cygnus.

“Just to be on the safe side, we’re trying to keep the neighboring ports free,” she said. With the Soyuz successfully docking, Cygnus will be reinstalled on its original port on Dec. 1, remaining there until its planned departure in March.

Unlike most previous NASA missions, Williams did not have a press conference before his launch. A briefing scheduled for early October was canceled because of the government shutdown and not rescheduled.

Williams, selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021, noted in a NASA podcast that he got his flight assignment right after completing astronaut candidate training. He called it “really interesting and a great education” to dive right into preparations for the mission, including getting introduced to the Soyuz spacecraft.

“It’s a little capsule,” he said of the Soyuz. “I mean, it’s more spacious than I think I thought at first, but it’s still a pretty tight squeeze.”