In the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the country of the Red Bear continues to launch its space mission. Russia has just succeeded in sending three cosmonauts into space.
Using the Soyuz spacecraft, three cosmonauts, namely Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, and Sergey Korsakov, took off from the Boikonur Cosmodrone, Kazakhstan, on Friday (18/3) local time.
They have managed to reach the International Space Station (ISS) after traveling 3.5 hours from the Earth's surface. In fact, this moment was also monitored by NASA TV.
Interestingly, this is the first mission since the last 22 years, where the entire Roscomos crew is involved. Previously, to go to the ISS, spacecraft often shared seats with countries, even the US and Russia often traveled together.
"For the first time in many years, the crew is completely Russian," said Roscosmos general director Dmitry Rogozin.
As quoted from Space, Saturday (3/19/2022) the three cosmonauts will stay for six months on the ISS, to be exact until September 2022.
Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, and Sergey Korsakov will join cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, then Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency (ESA), and Raja Chari, Thomas Marsburn, Kayla Barron, and Mark Vande Hei of NASA.
However, Shkaplerov, Dubrov, and Vande Hei will soon leave the ISS back to Earth, which is planned to be carried out on March 30, 2022 using a Russian Soyuz.
Since the occurrence of the Ukraine-Russia war, many criticisms and economic sanctions have been imposed by western countries and the United States against Russia.
The tension even extends to space, where Russia is in control of the ISS, threatening to bring the space station down to Earth.
However, with the launch of Soyuz, it is a sign that a number of countries, especially Russia-USA still need each other and that cooperation between countries in the field of space is still harmonious.
On April 3, the ISS population will increase with the arrival of four people on the launch of SpaceX's Ax-1 mission and the astronaut Crew-4 mission on 19 April.