A Russian rocket carrying a US astronaut and two Russian crewmates arrived at the International Space Station on Tuesday, with a Kremlin envoy hailing cooperation in space between Washington and Moscow as relations thaw between the two nations.
A Soyuz booster rocket lifted off as scheduled on Tuesday morning from the Russia-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan to put the Soyuz MS-27 in orbit. It docked at the space station just over three hours later.
On board were NASA astronaut Jonny Kim and Russia’s Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky, who are scheduled to spend about eight months at the space outpost.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev posted a video on his Telegram channel of the rocket launch and wrote: "Russian and US cooperation in the space industry continues today".
Last week, Dmitriev met with US officials in Washington — for the first such talks in years — as the two countries look to reset relations. US President Donald Trump wants a rapprochement with Putin in a bid to end Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to NASA, Kim, a US Navy lieutenant commander and dual-designated naval aviator and flight surgeon, will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare the crew for future space missions.
Kim, Ryzhikov and Zubritsky will join NASA astronauts Don Pettit, Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Kirill Peskov on the space outpost.
