WASHINGTON — NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and two cosmonauts arrived Wednesday at the International Space Station, bringing its number of residents to 10 for the coming week.
The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft carrying Rubio, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin of Roscosmos docked to the station’s Rassvet module. Following two orbits, docking occurred about three hours after a 9:54 a.m. launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Rubio, Prokopyev, and Petelin joined the Expedition 67 crew; Expedition 68 will begin Sept. 29, on the departure of Roscosmos cosmonauts Denis Matveev, Sergey Korsakov, and outgoing station commander Oleg Artemyev. They will land in Kazakhstan following their six-month stay aboard the orbiting laboratory.
This marks the first spaceflight for Rubio, the second for Prokopyev, and the first for Petelin.
Throughout their six-month stay aboard the orbital outpost, the trio will work on science and research in technology development, Earth science, biology, human research, and more.
The Payload Operations Integration Center at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville oversees all experiments and science communications aboard the International Space Station. It is staffed around the clock, 365 days per year.
Next month, four more crew members will arrive aboard NASA’s SpaceX Dragon Endurance. That launch is scheduled for Oct. 3.
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