(CNN) – Two Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy took off for the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday morning.
The planned launch comes at a time when many events have been postponed or canceled due to the pandemic of coronavirus. Travel restrictions prevented some of the families of astronauts, the media, and industry officials from attending the launch. Everyone involved in the launch kept two meters away and wore masks.
But many of the health and safety precautions taken were standard for astronauts who launch into the space station.
NASA has a long history of quarantining astronauts before going into space to prevent illnesses like the cold and flu from occurring off our planet. It was a concern even in the early days of the agency’s astronaut program.
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“The health and well-being of the crew is always paramount,” said Courtney Beasley, communications specialist at NASA Johnson Space Center. “All of our crew must be quarantined for two weeks before launch. This ensures that they are not sick or incubating when they reach the space station, and it is called ‘health stabilization. ‘”
Before the quarantine, astronauts have been following the recommendations of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. USA (CDC) with respect to the coronavirus. NASA and the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos maintained the standard two-week quarantine period for the crew, Beasley said.
“During quarantine, astronauts live in their crew rooms (NASA has crew rooms for this purpose at the Kennedy and Johnson Space Centers) and Roscosmos has them at Baikonur,” he said. “They have no direct contact with anyone who has not been previously authorized by NASA flight surgeons. Time is spent preparing for the flight, studying and resting, as well as exercising and making video calls to friends and family. ”
Approximately six hours after Thursday morning’s launch, they will dock at the International Space Station at 9:30 am ET. About two hours later, the hatches will open and join Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan.
Skripochka and Meir will return to Earth on April 17 after spending six months at the station. Morgan, who will also return to Earth with them, arrived at the station on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and had an eight-month extended mission.
When Skripochka, Meir and Morgan return from their stay in space, they will return to a very different Earth. When released, the coronavirus was not a threat. Now, it is a pandemic.
NASA already has a protocol for returning astronauts that includes a post-landing medical check-up performed by flight doctors. Doctors and other NASA teams help astronauts acclimatize to Earth’s gravity, lifting them up and walking shortly after landing. In the weeks that follow, they are monitored to make sure they are healthy.
This time, the protocols will be more comprehensive.
“NASA will closely adhere to the CDC recommendations on infection control for the coronavirus when Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir return to Earth and begin their medical tests and re-adaptation period,” Beasley said.
“This includes cleaning surfaces, social distancing, emphasizing hand hygiene, encouraging sick NASA team members to stay home, and limiting contact with crew members.”
On April 15, two days before the current crew returns to Earth, a “change of command ceremony” will be held at the station as the new crew takes office, according to NASA.
This is the third space flight for Cassidy and Ivanishin, and it is the first for Vagner.
Cassidy was selected by NASA to be an astronaut in 2004. The Navy captain also served for 11 years as a member of the US Navy SEAL team. USA Her previous experience in space flight includes a shuttle mission to Endeavor to help with the assembly of the Space Station in 2009. During that flight, she became the 500th person in history to fly into space.
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He also spent six months on the space station in 2013, one of the first crew members to participate in the new encounter system that shortened the docking with the space station from two days to six hours.
Cassidy, Ivanishin and Vagner will also welcome NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley when they arrive at the space station in mid to late May in NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 flight test.
It will be the first time that astronauts will launch into space aboard a US rocket and spacecraft from US land since the last space shuttle mission in 2011. Since then, crews launching into the International Space Station have departed from Baikonur. aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Demo-2 is the system’s final flight test before SpaceX is certified to conduct operational crew flights to and from the space station for NASA, the agency said.
The agency is monitoring CDC’s guidance regarding mission planning, they said. The release date could be postponed.
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