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The Falcon-9 rocket of the American company SpaceX launched from the Cape Canaveral launch site in Florida towards the International Space Station. It will send the Crew Dragon spacecraft to the ISS with a crew of four – three American astronauts and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, who has served in the Russian army since 2002 and has an officer rank.
The spacecraft will dock with the ISS on March 5. The American-Russian crew will work at the station for six months.
The International Space Station is one of the few joint projects between the United States and Russia. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions imposed because of it, cooperation between the two countries practically ceased.
However, in the summer of 2022, NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos once again agreed to continue the cross-flight program, that is, sending cosmonauts and astronauts to the ISS on spacecraft from both countries.
Currently, the International Space Station is crewed by three Russian cosmonauts, two NASA astronauts, and one representative each from the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
Agreement with NASA
According to the Russian state agency TASS, Grebenkin studied at the Military Aviation Engineering Institute in Irkutsk, and since 2002 he served as an engineer in the Russian Air Force and received the rank of Air Force captain.
image copyrightNASA
Grebenkin joined the cosmonaut corps in 2018, but this is his first flight into space; he will work on the ISS as a flight engineer for the Russian research program.
He will be the last of four Russian cosmonauts sent into space under the latest NASA-Roscosmos cross-flight agreement. Previously, cosmonauts Anna Kikina, Andrei Fedyaev (who was also a former Russian air force officer) and Konstantin Borisov were sent to the ISS.
The new ISS crew members intend to conduct a series of experiments, which include growing artificial human organs in zero-gravity conditions.
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In the summer of 2023, Russia announced its intention to take part in the work of the ISS until 2028, although it previously planned to leave the project after 2024.
At the end of July 2022, the head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, said: “Of course, we will fulfill all our obligations to our partners, but the decision and departure from this station after 2024 have been made.”
The head of Roscosmos also spoke about plans to create his own Russian orbital station – these statements were made against the backdrop of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the isolation of Moscow from Western countries.
Later, the rhetoric changed, and Roscosmos executive director for manned space programs Sergei Krikalev in an interview with Interfax said that the state corporation sent documents to the government with a proposal to extend the operation of the Russian segment of the ISS until at least 2028.
General Designer for Manned Complexes and Systems of RSC Energia Vladimir Solovyov, in turn, previously said that over the past two years, Russian cosmonauts have worked hard to repair their segment of the station, so they can now remain on the ISS until 2028.
The International Space Station is supported by the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Canada, the European Union and Japan.
2024-03-04 12:04:14
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