A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American blasted off Wednesday from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to take the crew to the International Space Station (ISS). Live footage from Russia’s Roscosmos space agency showed the spacecraft blasting off into the night sky over the Kazakh steppe. “The flight is going normally”the Russian agency’s commentator said. A few minutes later, the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft entered orbit. It is scheduled to dock with the Russian segment of the ISS at 22:33 Moscow time (20:33 in France).
The Soyuz spacecraft is carrying a crew of Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, and NASA astronaut Donald Pettit. Space is one of the last areas of cooperation between Russia and the United States, whose relations are at a low point due to the conflict in Ukraine.
Chronic underfunding
As part of the sanctions against Russia, Western countries have ended their partnership with Roscosmos, but Soyuz spacecraft still remain one of the only means of delivering crews to the ISS. The Russian space sector has suffered for years from chronic underfunding, corruption scandals and failures such as the loss of the Luna-25 lunar probe in August 2023.
These problems have not, however, dampened Russia’s ambitions, which eventually want to build its own orbital station to replace the aging ISS and resume missions to the Moon. The Russian agency also plans to look to countries in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East for new partnerships.
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