Soyuz rocket carrying first Belorussian woman in space en route to ISS – The Spokesman Review

German Press Agency

MOSCOW Two astronauts from Belarus and the U.S. have set off for the International Space Station together with a Russian cosmonaut, marking the first time that a woman from Belarus is traveling to space.

The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft lifted off from Russias Baikonur Cosmodrome in the steppes of Kazakhstan at 1236 GMT.

A first launch attempt had been aborted 20 seconds before takeoff on Thursday due to technical problems.

Saturdays launch saw Belorussian astronaut Marina Vasilevskaya, who is being accompanied by NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, becoming the first woman from her country to make it into space.

Space cooperation between the U.S. and Russia, including Moscows ally Belarus, continues despite the U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia over the war in Ukraine.

The launch also saw two women aboard a Soyuz capsule flying to the ISS for the first time.

This is Dysons third flight into space and Novitskys fourth.

Vasilevskaya works as a flight attendant for the Belorussian company Belavia. During her two-week stay on the ISS, she will carry out scientific experiments and take spectral images of the Earths surface.

According to Russian space agency Roskosmos, she will return to Earth with Novitsky and U.S. astronaut Loral OHara in the Soyuz MS-24 at the beginning of April.

Dyson will remain on the ISS until September and will then travel home with cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub.

Kononenko, 59, holds the record for the longest stay on the ISS.

By the end of his fifth current stay there, scheduled until Sept. 23, he will have spent more than 1,000 days in space.

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Soyuz rocket carrying first Belorussian woman in space en route to ISS - The Spokesman Review