Soyuz MS-26 crew with new TASS correspondent to head to ISS from Baikonur spaceport

BAIKONUR SPACEPORT /Kazakhstan/, September 11. /TASS/. The Soyuz MS-26 manned spacecraft will take off from the Baikonur spaceport and carry the crew of the 72nd long-term expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). It includes Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Vagner, the fifth TASS special correspondent on the ISS.
The launch of the Soyuz 2.1a booster is scheduled for 7:23 p.m. Moscow time (4:23 p.m. GMT) from Baikonur’s launch pad No. 31 (“Vostok”). The spacecraft will be launched into orbit about nine minutes later. The flight to the ISS will be a two-turn approach: the spacecraft is expected to dock with the Rassvet (“Dawn”) module of the Russian segment of the station at about 10:33 p.m. Moscow time (7:33 p.m. GMT).
The Soyuz MS-26 crew will include Vagner’s colleague Alexey Ovchinin and NASA’s oldest active astronaut, Donald Pettit. This will be Vagner’s second spaceflight, Ovchinin’s third and Pettit’s fourth. The crew is scheduled to spend 202 days in orbit and return on April 1, 2025.