Watch a Russian Soyuz rocket launch 3 astronauts to the ISS today

A NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts launched toward the International Space Station today (Sept. 11).

NASA astronaut Don Pettit joined Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which lifted off atop a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today at 12:23 p.m. EDT (1623 GMT; 9:23 p.m. local Baikonur time). The trio will join the Expedition 71 crew for a half-year mission aboard the ISS.

The flight went flawlessly, according to NASA’s launch commentator Anna Schneider at Johnson Space Center in Houston. “All three stages operated as expected during an eight-minute and 45-second ride to place Soyuz in its preliminary orbit,” Schneider stated as NASA’s coverage came to a close. With the successful orbital insertion, there are now a record 19 people in orbit across four different spacecraft. (20 people have been in space before at one time, but six of them were in suborbital space.)

a rocket launches at night, leaving a streak of fire behind it — A Soyuz rocket launches the MS-26 mission to the ISS from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sept. 11, 2024. (Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

The Soyuz MS-26 capsule is scheduled to dock at the International Space Station (ISS) at 3:33 p.m. EDT (1933 GMT) today. Docking coverage begins at 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT).

The hatch between Soyuz and the ISS will open at 5:50 p.m. EDT (2150 GMT) with NASA’s coverage and opening remarks beginning at 5:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT). Both events will stream live here at Space.com, via NASA+ (formerly NASA Television).

Each crewmember on this flight has flown to space before. This is Pettit’s fourth launch and will add to his accumulated total of 370 days in space, according to NASA statistics. His first mission, Expedition 6, was expected to last 2.5 months in space after a launch Nov. 23, 2002 on space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-113 mission.

three astronauts in spacesuits sitting down in front of an american flag and a russian flag — The Roscosmos Soyuz MS-26 crew. Left to right: NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner. (Image credit: Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center)

The landing was delayed to May 3, 2003, however, after the shuttle fleet was grounded in the wake of the space shuttle Columbia disaster that took place on Feb. 1, 2003, killing seven astronauts. Pettit’s arrival on Earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-1 spacecraft was safe, but eventful: a malfunction caused the spacecraft to land 295 miles (475 kilometers) off target, causing a lengthy delay for ground teams to reach the crew.