The spacecraft “Soyuz MS-11” docked to the ISS
BAIKONUR COSMODROME, 3 Dec — RIA Novosti. The spacecraft “Soyuz MS-11” with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, astronaut of the Canadian space Agency, David Saint-Jacques and American Anne McClain docked to the International space station, reports RIA Novosti.
Upstairs
Rocket “Soyuz-FG” with the spacecraft was launched at 14.31 GMT from Baikonur. After nine minutes, the spacecraft separated from the third stage and headed for rendezvous with the station. All the crew took about six hours to get to the station on short chetyrehvalkovoj scheme.
Kononenko, Saint-Jacques and McClain will open the hatches after pressure relief and support operations. They will meet Russian cosmonaut Sergei Prokopiev, astronaut of the European space Agency, the German Alexander Gerst and American Serine of Augen. It is planned that Kononenko, Saint-Jacques and McClain will be in orbit for 194 days.
The launch crew had to assign a little earlier than planned. According to the plans “Soyuz MS-11” should be arriving to the station after returning currently in orbit crew of spacecraft “Soyuz MS-09”. But in this case, the station would have remained for some time uninhabited, as “Soyuz MS-10” because of the failure of the rocket on 11 October could not reach the ISS. Then, Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and American astronaut Nick Hague, landed less than 20 minutes after the start.
So, Oleg Kononenko will perform several tasks, which failed to address Ovchinin. Together with another Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyeva he gets out into open space. The number of tasks — examination of the “Union of MS-09,” which in late August found a hole. Astronauts will reveal the part of the screen-vacuum thermal insulation and meteoroid bumper of the vehicle. They will try to get to the drilled region of the ship, and even try to find remnants of the “glue” that could have sealed the hole.