Russian spacecraft Soyuz MS-09 with three crew members onboard landed successfully in Kazakhstan Thursday, the European Space Agency said.

Russian astronaut Sergey Prokopyev, United States' Serena Aunon-Chancellor of the NASA, and German Alexander Gerst of the ESA, returned from the International Space Station in the spacecraft after staying in space for 197 days. </s> MOSCOW - Russian spacecraft Soyuz MS-09 has successfully landed in Kazakhstan, bringing back the three astronauts who have completed their missions on the International Space Station (ISS), the Russian mission control centre said Thursday.

"The landing section with Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev, NASA astronaut Serena Aunon-Chancellor and astronaut of the European Space Agency Alexander Gerst has landed," it was quoted by local media as saying.

On June 6, Russia successfully launched its Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft to the ISS. The three-member crew had lived on it for the scheduled 187 days.

Their successors, Oleg Kononenko of Russia, Anne McClain of the United States and David Saint-Jacques of Canada arrived in early December and are expected to stay on the ISS for six and a half months.

They were transported by the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft, which was launched on Dec. 3. The flight was carried out after a spacecraft lift-off failure in October.

On Oct. 11 the capsule of the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft with Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and U.S. astronaut Nick Hague on board made an emergency landing in Kazakhstan after the carrier rocket malfunctioned shortly after lift-off.

Russia then suspended manned space missions but sent a cargo ship to the ISS on Nov. 16. The Progress MS-10 cargo ship carried about 2.5 tons of various supplies, including fuel, air, water, scientific equipment, and life-support equipment for the ISS crew.

Russian state space corporation Roscosmos and investigators need for probe into the microfracture found on the orbital module of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft in late August, said the Russian mission control center.

On Dec. 12, a spacewalk was conducted by Russian cosmonauts to check the crack that led to a pressure leak at ISS. Russia's Soyuz models are currently the only spacecraft for spaceflights between the ISS and the Earth. </s> A Russian Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft with three astronauts aboard was launched Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome bound for the International Space Station. </s> Soyuz MS-08 trio lights up Kazakh sky to begin 2-day trek to ISS

Lighting up the Kazakh Steppe at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, three fresh International Space Station crew members launched toward space to begin a two-day chase of the orbiting outpost. Soyuz MS-08 launched at 1:44 p.m. EDT (17:44 GMT) March 21, 2018.

Riding a Soyuz-FG rocket, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel achieved orbit in just under nine minutes to begin a two-day, 34-orbit rendezvous profile to catch up to the ISS. Docking with the Poisk module is expected to occur at about 3:41 p.m. EDT (19:41 GMT) March 23. There the trio will join the already-aboard Expedition 55 crew members Scott Tingle of NASA, Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos (the Russian state-run space corporation).

The run-up to the nighttime launch started with the rollout of the Soyuz-FG rocket with the Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft two days before, on March 19. Transported horizontally by rail, the vehicle made the trek to launch pad 1/5, also known as Gagarin Start—the place where the first human, Yuri Gagarin, launched into space.

Once there, the rocket was lifted into the vertical position and umbilicals connected to begin the process of readying the 162-foot (49.5-meter) tall machine for its launch.

Soyuz MS-08, call sign “Hawaii,” is part of the latest evolution of the spacecraft (Soyuz-MS) that dates back to its first launch in 1967. It consists of three modules—an orbital module, descent module (where the crew resides), and a service module—totaling 25.5 feet (7.78 meters) long and 8.9 feet (2.72 meters wide). With its solar panels deployed, it has a wingspan of 35 feet (10.7 meters).

During their two-day journey, the crew will have a tiny volume of 370 cubic feet (10.5 cubic meters) to live in between the orbital and decent modules.

The Soyuz-FG carrier rocket has three stages, which includes its four strap-on liquid-fueled boosters as the first stage. Those boosters are 64 feet (19.6 meters) tall and 8.8 feet (2.68 meters) wide. Each sport a single RD-107A engine that consumes liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene to produce 188,500 pounds (838.5 kilonewtons) of thrust for 118 seconds before falling away.

Stage two includes the 89-foot (27.1-meter) tall, 9.7-foot (2.95-meter) wide core stage. It is powered by a single RD-108A engine, which also consumes liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene. It fires at the same time as the boosters and produces 178,160 pounds (792.5 kilonewtons) of thrust for about 280 seconds.

The third stage is 22 feet (6.7 meters) long and 8.7 feet (2.66 meters) wide. It is powered by an RD-0110 engine and consumes liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene to produce 66,980 pounds (298 kilonewtons) of thrust. It fires for up to 230 seconds to push the Soyuz spacecraft into orbit.

About 8.5 hours before launch, the crew woke up and began their last hours on Earth before their five-month mission. This included eating breakfast, performing various traditions such as signing room door at the Cosmonaut Hotel and being blessed by Russian Orthodox priests, and saying their final goodbyes to friends and family.

At about 6 hours before liftoff, the crew left the Cosmonaut Hotel to board a bus bound for Site 254 where they were given final medical checks and helped into their Sokol launch and entry suits.

Meanwhile, five hours before launch, the rocket began receiving its rocket grade kerosene propellant and liquid oxygen. This loading was completed before the crew arrived at the launch pad, although it would continue to be topped off as the cryogenic liquid oxygen slowly boiled away.

Just over three hours before leaving Earth, the crew departed Site 254 to take the 50-minute bus ride to the launch pad. At 2.5 hours before liftoff, the ground teams began helping the crew into their Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft.

Just over two hours before engine ignition, the hatch to the Soyuz was shut and sealed, and ground teams began final system checks on the vehicle.

With one hour to go, the pad was evacuated and the crew left alone to wait for the final countdown sequence. To pass the time, music was fed into the capsule. The last song listened to was “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne.

Some 45 minutes before launch, the two service tower halves retracted. This also took away the crew’s launch pad access back to Earth. From this point, should something had gone wrong, the only way to safety would have been the spacecraft’s launch abort tower. However, everything continued nominally.

In the final 10 minutes of the countdown the crew members closed their helmets and turned on their suit air, the launch key was inserted in the launch bunker, and the auto sequence began.

Forty seconds from liftoff, the third stage umbilical tower retracted. This was followed by the core stage umbilical tower triggering the engine ignition sequence at 20 seconds before launch.

It took 15 seconds for the five multi-chamber engines at the base of the Soyuz-FG rocket to throttle to full power. Then five seconds later, the entire stack began rising toward the night sky.

One minute, 54 seconds after leaving Earth, the abort tower jettisoned as it was no longer required. Three seconds later, the four liquid-fueled boosters separated. This was followed 40 seconds later by the launch shroud jettisoning to reveal the Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft to space.

Some 4 minutes 45 seconds after liftoff, the core stage shut down. Three seconds later, the third stage ignited and then separated from the lower stage in a process called “hot staging.”

The third stage continued to burn for just under four minutes before cutting off 8 minutes, 44 seconds after launch. Soyuz MS-08 separated four seconds later and began deploying its antennas and twin solar panels. Soyuz MS-08 was in orbit.

For the rest of the crew’s day, they will work to perform two orbit-raising burns on the spacecraft’s third orbit. By their sixth orbit, the trio will go into a sleep period on the tiny spacecraft.

On Thursday, the spacecraft will perform another orbital adjustment burn and on Friday, the spacecraft is set to rendezvous and dock with the ISS.

Once onboard, the trio will spend five months there before returning to Earth in late August. During their time, they will perform hundreds of experiments and support several visiting vehicle arrivals and departures beginning with SpaceX’s CRS-14 Dragon spacecraft in early April. Their first major task, however, will be preparing for an extravehicular activity on March 29.

This EVA will be performed by spacewalking veterans Feustel and Arnold. Combined, the two have over 55 hours of time spent inside a suit in the void of space.

Their primary tasks on the spacewalk will include installing wireless antennas on the Tranquility module and replacing cameras on the P1 truss segment, according to NASA.

Today’s launch was the 137th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft and the 63rd of the Soyuz-FG rocket, which traces its heritage to the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile first launched in the late 1950s. The R-7 family of boosters has collectively launched more than 1,800 times—more than any other large rocket family.

Additionally, this was the third orbital launch performed by Russia in 2018 and the first human spaceflight of the year.

Derek Richardson has a degree in mass media, with an emphasis in contemporary journalism, from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. While at Washburn, he was the managing editor of the student run newspaper, the Washburn Review. He also has a blog about the International Space Station, called Orbital Velocity. He met with members of the SpaceFlight Insider team during the flight of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket with the MUOS-4 satellite. Richardson joined our team shortly thereafter. His passion for space ignited when he watched Space Shuttle Discovery launch into space Oct. 29, 1998. Today, this fervor has accelerated toward orbit and shows no signs of slowing down. After dabbling in math and engineering courses in college, he soon realized his true calling was communicating to others about space. Since joining SpaceFlight Insider in 2015, Richardson has worked to increase the quality of our content, eventually becoming our managing editor. @TheSpaceWriter </s> With a mission that was anything but mundane, Soyuz MS-09 with its three-person crew returned to Earth after more than 6 months in orbit on the International Space Station. The Soyuz MS-09 vehicle rose to high public profile in August when a hole that resulted in a small atmospheric leak aboard the Station was discovered in its Orbital Module.

That hole was determined to have been drilled on the ground during the spacecraft’s manufacturing and led to a rather dramatic spacewalk earlier in December that saw cosmonauts cut into the protective casing around MS-09’s Orbital Module to conduct further investigation of the issue.

Wrapping up its mission, Soyuz MS-09 and its three-person crew from Russia, ESA, and NASA, undocked from the International Space Station at 20:42 EST (01:42 UTC on Thursday, 20 December) before landing on the Kazakh steppe at around 00:03 EST (0503 UTC) on Thursday, 20 December.

Soyuz MS-09 – a profile in intrigue:

When Soyuz MS-09 launched to the Space Station on 6 June 2018, the mission seemed like most others that had come before: nominal in almost every regard with the spacecraft successfully delivering its three-person crew to the International Space Station.

But the spacecraft’s quiescent existence was shattered on 29 August 2018 when a small air leak was identified by ground controllers throughout the International Space Station, a leak that was quickly traced to a 2 millimeter hole in the Orbital Module of Soyuz MS-09.

The crewed Soyuz transportation vehicles are comprised of three primary sections, the Orbital Module at the top which physically connects the vehicle to the International Space Station, the Descent Module in the middle within which crews ride to and from orbit, and the Instrumentation and Propulsion Module which contains the propulsion, power, electrical, and avionics systems for the craft.

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At the end of nominal missions, the only part of a Soyuz spacecraft that survives reentry is the Descent Module, with the Orbital and Instrumentation and Propulsion Modules burning up during atmospheric reentry.

Once the hole was found, Station crew members immediately identified it as having been caused by a drill and reported the presence of material in the hole suggesting that is had already been sealed on the ground and that that ground seal had given way.

Over the objections of then-NASA Station Commander Drew Feustel and NASA requests to hold off on permanent repairs until an investigation and better understand of the hole was determined, Russian cosmonauts and Russian Mission Control quickly sealed the hole using an epoxy sealant.

After those repairs, no further leaks were detected aboard the Station aside from the nominal atmospheric decay that occurs during each of the Station’s 16 daily orbital day to night passes.

Official confirmation that the hole was caused by a drill was announced on 4 September 2018, though it could not be determined whether the hole was drilled intentionally during manufacturing – aka, sabotage – or was the result of a manufacturing error.

Despite the admission, what was abundantly clear was that workers on the ground had identified the hole and sealed it in an attempt to cover it up, thus allowing Soyuz MS-09 to pass all pressurization and leak checks prior to launch.

The presence of the hole and its undocumented fix also raised serious concerns about the safety and quality control methods in place within Roscosmos in building the as-yet-still only vehicle capable of transporting crew to and from the International Space Station since the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet in July 2011.

Perhaps serendipitously, the presence of the hole in Soyuz MS-09’s Orbital Module is arguably the best place the hole could have been since the Orbital Module does not survive atmospheric reentry.

In short, the fact that the hole is in the Orbital Module means that it poses no threat to the safe return of Alexander Gerst (ESA), Sergey Prokopyev (Roscosmos), and Serena Auñón-Chancellor (NASA).

However, the fact that the hole made it through safety and quality assurance checks before launch also raised serious questions of whether other holes exist throughout the Soyuz MS-09 vehicle – a question which cannot be answered with certainty until the craft returns to Earth.

An even greater spotlight was thrown onto Soyuz MS-09 on 11 October 2018 when the Soyuz MS-10 crew vehicle was forced to perform an in-flight abort to pull itself away from its failing Soyuz rocket just over two minutes into flight.

The Soyuz MS-10 launch failure, also attributed to a lack of quality control within Roscosmos, only strengthened and raised the concerns of safety and quality assurance within the Russian human space program.

Nonetheless, Roscosmos was quickly able to determine the reason for the Soyuz MS-10 launch failure and successfully launched the Soyuz MS-11 crew up to the International Space Station on 3 December, setting up a delayed but still more or less on time landing for Soyuz MS-09 on 20 December.

However, since the Soyuz MS-09 Orbital Module will not survive reentry, Roscosmos was forced to perform a spacewalk, or EVA, to tear into the outer protective layer surrounding the hole to take photographs and collect samples that will aid in the still-ongoing official investigation of how the hole was drilled in the first place and how the undocumented ground repair occurred.

The rather dramatic looking spacewalk took place on 11 December, with Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Sergey Prokopyev cutting into the thermal blankets and pulling away insulation in order to examine the Orbital Module’s outer hull.

The EVA clearly revealed the hole, allowing the needed samples and photographs to be collected without issue.

Soyuz MS-09 landing:

With Soyuz MS-09 now undocked from the International Space Station, the crewed craft performed two orbits of Earth and various small trajectory burns to bring itself into proper alignment for its critical deorbit burn.

The more than 4 minute long deorbit burn began at 23:09 EST on Wednesday, 19 December (0409 UTC on Thursday, 20 December) and decreased Soyuz MS-09’s velocity to lower the craft’s perigee, point of closest approach to Earth’s surface, into Earth’s atmosphere at a precise point to allow the Soyuz’s Descent Module to land at its primary location on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

Following the deorbit burn and a brief coast, commands were sent to separate Soyuz MS-09 into its three constituent parts, with the Orbital Module (containing the hole) and the Instrumentation and Propulsion Module burning up in Earth’s atmosphere while the Descent Module orients itself heatshield first for atmospheric entry.

During the Descent Module’s reentry, the immense speed of the craft combined with friction with air molecules will create a plasma flow around the vehicle which can – and usually does – cause temporary communication blackouts with the crew.

Perhaps more importantly than other Soyuz reentries, it is important to stress that these communication blackouts are to be expected and are not, in themselves, any cause for concern during the entry process.

Also important to stress is that aside from the nominal reentry profile, the Soyuz’s Descent Module can also perform what is known as a ballistic style reentry – a much steeper and harsher reentry – designed to get a crew to the ground as quickly as possible if a systems or orientation issue is identified by the spacecraft’s computers.

This type of ballistic reentry was last seen during the Soyuz MS-10 launch abort in October and has previously occurred in October 2007 and April 2008 during back-to-back Soyuz landings of International Space Station crew members.

Had a ballistic reentry occur during the Soyuz MS-09 landing , it wouldn’t be indicative of or immediately connected to the hole in the Orbital Module, which will have already been jettisoned by the point a ballistic reentry would be triggered during the entry sequence.

However, a nominal reentry and landing occurred, with Soyuz MS-09’s Descent Module touching down under parachute and last-second retro rocket firing at around 00:03 EST (0503 UTC) on Thursday, 20 December on the Kazakh steps. </s> In the sparsely populated Kazakh Steppe in Kazakhstan, Russia’s state-run space corporation, Roscosmos, launched three people to the International Space Station. Soyuz MS-08 lifted off pad 1/5 at 1:44 p.m. EDT (17:44 GMT) March 21, 2018, from Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The following photos taken by NASA’s Joel Kowsky show the 162-foot (49.5-meter) long Soyuz-FG carrier rocket roll out to the launch pad two days before liftoff, the three fresh Expedition 55 crew members traveling to their Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft the day of the flight, and the launch itself.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel are on a two-day trek to rendezvous and dock with the ISS. The spacecraft will link up with the Poisk module at 3:41 p.m. EDT (19:41 GMT) March 23 to begin a five-month stay at the outpost.

From left to right: NASA astronaut Drew Feustel, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold </s> A Russian cosmonaut and an American astronaut are in "good condition" after a booster rocket on their spacecraft failed and forced them to make an emergency landing Thursday.

The Soyuz MS-10 rocket took off at 4:40 a.m. local time on what was supposed to be a six-hour journey to the International Space Station. Instead, the rocket suffered a malfunction shortly after taking off from Russia's spaceport in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

The spacecraft's two-man crew, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin, made an emergency landing in the craft's capsule in Kazakhstan. Rescue teams reached the landing site and confirmed that both men are alive and in "good condition," NASA wrote on .

"[Nick Hague] and Alexey Ovchinin are on helicopters, making their way back to Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Search & rescue teams report that they remain in good condition after a safe landing following an issue with their launch on a Soyuz earlier," NASA tweeted.

Russian state news agencies reported that the two men would be flown to the town of Zhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan to undergo medical examinations.

The head of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, said that it was creating a state commission to investigate the cause of the crash, and deputy prime minister Yuri Borisov announced that Russia would be suspending manned flights until the incident could be reviewed.

The moment the boost rocket failed was captured on the live-feed of the launch carried on NASA and Roscomos’ websites. In the video, a burst of light was seen around the rocket, which was still visible in the distance.

NASA has paid for places on Russia’s Soyuz rockets for its astronauts to travel to the International Space Station since the American shuttle retired seven years ago.

Recently, the U.S. has been seeking to replace the route with contracts with commercial space companies, such as SpaceX, but the Soyuz currently remains the only way to reach the station.

SpaceX and Boeing are both scheduled to have unmanned test flights with their own spacecraft in January and NASA astronauts are training for flights aboard the two companies' crafts in June and August. </s> MOSCOW — A Soyuz spacecraft carrying astronauts from Canada, Russia and the United States has undocked from the International Space Station and is headed back to Earth.

The Soyuz separated without incident from the orbiting laboratory at 2325 GMT (7:25 p.m. EDT) Monday. It is to land in the steppes of Kazakhstan about 3 1/2 hours later.

The capsule is carrying two astronauts who are completing their first flights: Anne McClain of the United States and David Saint-Jacques of Canada. Also aboard is expedition commander Oleg Kononenko, who is ending his fourth space mission. All three spent 204 days in space.

Americans Nick Hague and Christina Koch and Russia's Alexey Ovchinin remain aboard the space station. </s> BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - A Russian cosmonaut and a U.S. astronaut were safe on Thursday after a Soyuz rocket bound for the International Space Station failed in mid-air two minutes after liftoff in Kazakhstan, leading to a dramatic emergency landing.

The two-man crew, Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and American Nick Hague, landed unharmed on the Kazakh desert steppe as rescue crews raced to reach them, according to the U.S. space agency NASA and Russia’s space agency Roscosmos.

The mishap occurred as the first and second stages of a Russian booster rocket separated shortly after the launch from Kazakhstan’s Soviet-era cosmodrome of Baikonur.

The Soyuz capsule carrying Ovchinin and Hague separated from the malfunctioning Russian rocket and plunged 31 miles (50 km) down to the surface, with parachutes helping to slow its speed, NASA said. A cloud of sand billowed up as the capsule landed after what NASA called a 34-minute steep ballistic descent.

Video from inside the capsule showed the two men being shaken around at the moment the failure occurred, with their arms and legs flailing. Ovchinin can be heard saying, “That was a quick flight.”

Photographs released by Roscosmos after the rescue showed the two men smiling and relaxing on sofas at a town near their landing site as they underwent medical tests. A photograph posted on Twitter by NASA showed Ovchinin and Hague embracing their families after being transported back to the Baikonur site.

Rescue crews raced to the scene to retrieve them from their landing spot, including paratroopers, helicopters and all-terrain vehicles, NASA said.

NASA has relied on Russian rockets to ferry astronauts to the space station since the United States retired its Space Shuttle program in 2011, although the agency has announced plans for a test flight carrying two astronauts on a SpaceX commercial rocket next April.

Space is an area of cooperation between the United States and Russia at a time of fraught relations. Asked about the mishap, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House he was “not worried” that American astronauts have to rely on Russia to get into space.

Thursday’s mishap was the first serious launch problem experienced by a manned Soyuz space mission since 1983, when a crew narrowly escaped before a launchpad explosion.

‘CREW HAS BEEN SAVED’

Moscow immediately suspended all manned space launches, the RIA news agency reported, while Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said he ordered a state commission to be created to investigate what went wrong. Russia’s Investigative Committee said it opened a criminal investigation into the matter.

“Rescue services have been working since the first second of the accident,” Rogozin wrote on Twitter. “The emergency rescue systems of the MS-Soyuz spacecraft worked smoothly. The crew has been saved.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the most important thing was that the two men were alive.

A view shows the Soyuz capsule transporting U.S. astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin, after it made an emergency landing following a failure of its booster rockets, near the city of Zhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan October 11, 2018. Federal Air Transport Agency "Rosaviation"/Handout via REUTERS.

The space station’s next re-supply mission had been scheduled for late October from Baikonur, but the new investigation may delay it.

NASA officials now must decide how or whether to maintain a U.S. presence on the $100 billion orbital research laboratory.

“The fact that this crew didn’t get to orbit, we feel bad for them. But we have confidence that our Russian colleagues will figure out what’s going on and we’ll hopefully see Nick and Alexei in orbit at the space station soon,” said Kenny Todd, NASA’s International Space Station operations integration manager.

Hague and Ovchinin were set to join the station’s current three-member crew, which includes American Serena Aunon-Chancellor.

“We have a lot of things planned through the rest of the fall and the winter, and that’s all just being reassessed right now,” Sam Scimemi, NASA’s director for the International Space Station, told Reuters. “We have resources well into next year for this crew, so there’s no concern about resources on board.”

Interfax quoted a source as saying the crash meant the three people aboard the space station - a German and a Russian in addition to the American - would be stuck there at least until January. They were due to return to Earth in December.

Unmanned launches of Soyuz rockets might also be suspended, Interfax said.

Visiting Kazakhstan for the first time as NASA administrator, Jim Bridenstine witnessed Thursday’s launch and promised a “thorough investigation” into the mishap.

Slideshow (17 Images)

“I’m grateful that everyone is safe,” Bridenstine said in a statement.

Questions are now likely to be asked about Russia’s space program. In August, a hole appeared in a Soyuz capsule docked to the ISS that caused a brief loss of air pressure and had to be patched. Rogozin has said it could have been made deliberately by someone during manufacturing or while the craft was in space.

Last November, Roscosmos lost contact with a newly launched weather satellite after it blasted off from Russia’s new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East.
Soyuz MS-09 lands safely on the steppe in Kazakhstan.