The NASA Administrator visited Baikonur for the first time in eight years
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman visited the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for the first time in eight years. His visit took place during the launch of a U.S.-Russian crew to the International Space Station. The Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft, with three crew members on board, departed from Baikonur for the ISS. The astronauts will spend about eight months in orbit.
The launch of the crew to the International Space Station took place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman in attendance. This was the first visit by the head of the U.S. space agency to this cosmodrome in the last eight years. Before the launch, Isaacman met with Dmitry Bakanov, head of the Russian state corporation Roscosmos. During the meeting, he thanked the Russian side for preparing the joint mission. “The collective work carried out over the past few months reflects the professionalism and dedication of all participants,” the NASA administrator said during a meeting with the crew.
On Tuesday, July 14, a Soyuz-2.1 rocket carrying the Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft launched from Baikonur. On board are NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. After reaching orbit, the crew will join the team already working on the International Space Station. According to the plan, the three new crew members will spend about eight months on the ISS. There, they will conduct scientific experiments and support the station’s operations.
The joint crew in orbit also includes NASA astronauts Jessica Meir, Jack Gataway, and Chris Williams; European Space Agency representative Sophie Adenot; and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Sergey Mikayev, and Andrey Fedyaev. Despite political tensions between the U.S. and Russia, cooperation on flights to the ISS continues. The International Space Station remains one of the few places where American and Russian specialists still work together, according to the Associated Press.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has authorized SpaceX to resume Starship test flights following an investigation into the causes of the failure during the May launch of Starship V3.
