Relaunched Russian/American Crew Launches, Docks Safely at ISS after Last Year’s Harrowing In Flight Soyuz Abort

The Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft is launched with Expedition 59 crewmembers Nick Hague and Christina Koch of NASA, along with Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, Friday March 15, 2019, Kazakh time (March 14 Eastern time) at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Hague, Koch, and Ovchinin will spend six-and-a-half months living and working aboard the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Ken Kremer  --SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM –14 March 2019

CAPE CANAVERAL, FL –  The second time was indeed the charm for the relaunched Russian/American Soyuz Crew from last October’s harrowing in flight abort as they were joined this time by another NASA astronaut and successfully blasted off this afternoon, (Thursday, March 14 Eastern time, Friday March 15 Kazakh time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and docked their MS-12 spacecraft this evening at the International Space Station (ISS). 

For today’s launch of the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft carrying Nick Hague and Christina Koch of NASA and Alexey Ovchinin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, the trio  launched flawlessly and on time at 3:14 p.m. EDT and in the middle of the night (12:14 a.m. Friday Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. 

Hague, Koch and Ovchinin docked to the space station’s Rassvet module at 9:01 p.m. EST March 14 after a fast track four-orbit, six-hour journey.

The Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft is launched with Expedition 59 crewmembers Nick Hague and Christina Koch of NASA, along with Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, Friday March 15, 2019, Kazakh time (March 14 Eastern time) at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Hague, Koch, and Ovchinin will spend six-and-a-half months living and working aboard the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

It was a happy conclusion for all three crew members to be sure, and even more so for Hague and Ovchinin whose Soyuz launch failed two minutes after liftoff last October when one of the four first stage strap on boosters failed to jettison properly.

Fortunately the abort system worked perfectly and they parachuted to safely following the first manned Soyuz launch failure in about 30 years.

After docking safely the three crew members opened the hatch between the two ships late this evening at approximately 11.07 p.m. and were welcomed aboard the orbiting laboratory.

Soyuz MS-12 approaches ISS. Credit: NASA

The ISS crew instantly doubled in size as they joined the three Expedition 58 crew members already on board.

Thus the new Expedition 58 with a multinational crew of six from the US, Russia and Canada officially began at the time of the Soyuz MS-12 docking.

Hague, Koch, and Ovchinin will spend six-and-a-half months living and working aboard the International Space Station. 

Expedition 59 prime crewmembers Christina Koch of NASA, left, Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, and Nick Hague of NASA, right, pose for a photograph at the conclusion of a press conference, Wednesday, March 13, 2019 at the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Hague, Koch, and Ovchinin will launch March 14, U.S. time, on the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome for a six-and-a-half month mission on the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Here are further details from NASA:

“The arrival of Hague, Koch and Ovchinin restores the station's crew complement to six. 

They have joined Anne McClain of NASA, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency and Expedition 59 Commander Oleg Kononenko of Roscosmos.

LIFTOFF! Expedition 59 crew @Astro_Christina, @AstroHague, and Alexey Ovchinin are on their way to @Space_Station!  Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The crew members will spend more than six months conducting about 250 science investigations in fields such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences, and technology development. Seventy-five of the investigations are new and have never been performed in space. Some of the investigations are sponsored by the U.S. National Laboratory on the space station, which Congress designated in 2005 to maximize its use for improving quality of life on Earth.

Highlights of upcoming investigations include devices that mimic the structure and function of human organs, free-flying robots, and an instrument to measure Earth’s distribution of carbon dioxide.

Three resupply spacecraft - a Russian Progress, Northrop Grumman Cygnus and SpaceX Dragon - are scheduled to arrive with science to support those investigations and additional supplies for the crew. 

Hague, Koch, McClain and Saint Jacques soon will begin final preparations to venture outside the station’s Quest airlock for three planned spacewalks. On March 22 and 29, pairs of spacewalkers will replace nickel-hydrogen batteries with newer, more powerful lithium-ion batteries for power channels on one pair of the station’s solar arrays. On April 8, spacewalkers will lay out jumper cables between the Unity module and the midpoint of the station’s backbone to establish a redundant power path to the Canadian-built robotic arm, known as Canadarm2, and enhance computer network capabilities. The March 29 spacewalk with McClain and Koch is scheduled to be the first-ever spacewalk with all-female spacewalkers. As with all spacewalks, crew member assignments are subject to change due to real-time operations.

The crew also is scheduled to be onboard during test flights of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which will return human spaceflight launches for space station missions to U.S. soil.

McClain, Saint-Jacques and Kononenko are scheduled to remain aboard the station until June, while Hague, Koch and Ovchinin are set to return to Earth early this fall.

Hague and Ovchinin now have completed a journey to the station that initially was planned for Oct. 11, when a booster separation problem with their Soyuz rocket’s first stage triggered an abort two minutes after launch, resulting in a safe return to Earth. They were reassigned to fly again after McClain, Kononenko and Saint-Jacques launched for Expedition 58 in early December. This is Ovchinin’s third flight into space, the second for Hague and the first for Koch. NASA selected all three astronauts in the Expedition 59 crew in the 2013 astronaut class. 

This image compilation shows the Soyuz spacecraft carrying astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch of NASA and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos at a distance of 70, 15 and less than two meters from the International Space Station, where it docked at 9:01 p.m. EST March 14, 2019.

Credits: NASA Television

For more than 18 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the station, advancing scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth that will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space, including the Moon and Mars. A global endeavor, 236 people from 18 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted more than 2,500 investigations from researchers in 106 countries. Investigations conducted on the International Space Station impact the daily lives of people on Earth and prepare the way for humans to venture farther into space.”

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Streak shot of Expedition 59 launch Friday March 15, 2019, Kazakh time (March 14 Eastern time) at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Watch for Ken’s continuing onsite coverage of NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and more space and mission reports direct from the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida and Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia.

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Dr. Kremer is a research scientist and journalist based in the KSC area, active in outreach and interviewed regularly on TV and radio about space topics.

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Expedition 59 crew on ISS