The Soyuz MS-26 crewed mission has carried NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner to the International Space Station (ISS). The launch took place on Wednesday, September 11, at 16:23 UTC from Site 31/6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the ISS just over three hours later, and docking occurred successfully at 19:32 UTC. The crew entered the ISS at 21:58 UTC.
Ovchinin commands Soyuz MS-26, while Vagner and Pettit are the mission’s flight engineers. Now that the spacecraft has docked with the Rassvet module on the Russian segment of the station, the veteran crew are part of the station’s Expedition 71 crew. They will conduct a handoff process with the Soyuz MS-25 return crew, consisting of Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Roscosmos, as well as Tracy Caldwell-Dyson of NASA.
The Soyuz MS-26 crew. From left: Ivan Vagner, Alexey Ovchinin and Don Pettit. (Credit: NASA/JSC)
Alexey Ovchinin, born on 28 September 1971 in Rybinsk, Russia, is on his third orbital spaceflight, having previously flown aboard Soyuz TMA-20M and Soyuz TM-12. Both missions involved flights to the ISS, and Ovchinin had spent a total of 374 days in space on Expeditions 47/48 and 59/60 prior to this flight. He has also performed one EVA on the Station.
The veteran military instructor pilot and cosmonaut has one more Soyuz launch on his resume, in addition to the previous two. Ovchinin commanded the Soyuz MS-10 mission, on which NASA’s Nick Hague served as flight engineer, and both men were scheduled to be part of Expedition 57 aboard the ISS. Soyuz MS-10 launched on Oct. 11, 2018, but a problem during the separation of the rocket’s four side boosters caused the vehicle to spin out of control.
The launch abort system worked as planned and pulled the Soyuz spacecraft away from the flailing rocket. The Soyuz MS-10 reached an altitude of 93 km, just below the Karman line.
After the spacecraft reached apogee, Soyuz MS-10 landed safely 402 km east of Baikonur and 20 km east of the Kazakh city of Zhezkazgan. The crew experienced six to seven times the force of gravity during the capsule's ballistic descent, but were unharmed. Ovchinin and Hague were later reassigned to Soyuz MS-12, when they flew with NASA's Christina Koch as the third crew member.
Ivan Vagner, born July 10, 1985 in Severoonezhsk, Russia, is flying on his second mission to space and to the International Space Station. He launched into space aboard Soyuz MS-16 and spent over 195 days in orbit as part of the Expedition 62/63 crews. He was part of the MS-16 backup crew, but due to a medical issue with one of the prime crew members, he was called up to the secondary crew.
Soyuz MS-16 approaches the International Space Station before docking. (Credit: NASA TV)
Vagner was an engineer and assistant flight director at RSC Energia for the Space Station programme before being appointed to the cosmonaut corps. He holds a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the Baltic State Technical University in St. Petersburg.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit, born April 20, 1955, in Silverton, Oregon, is flying on his fourth mission to space. The former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist, who holds a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Arizona, was selected as an astronaut as part of the 1996 Group 16 astronaut class, “The Sardines.”
The “Sardines”: NASA’s 1996 Group 16 astronaut class. (Credit: NASA)
Pettit's first launch was aboard STS-113, when the space shuttle Endeavor It flew to the ISS in November 2002 on ISS Assembly Flight 11A with the P1 truss. This flight was the last of the shuttle before Columbia launched on the 16-day STS-107 Spacehab research mission in January 2003, which would ultimately result in the loss of the shuttle during reentry and the cessation of the shuttle program.
During the STS-113 mission, Don Pettit, Nikolai Budarin of Roscosmos, and NASA's Ken Bowersox became the Expedition 6 crew on the International Space Station, which at the time had far fewer modules and capabilities than it does now. As a result of the shuttle grounding, Pettit and Bowersox became the first American astronauts to launch into orbit aboard a shuttle and return to space in a Soyuz capsule. The Soyuz TMA-1 landed safely despite a ballistic reentry that caused it to land hundreds of miles from its planned landing site.
STS-126 and Expedition 18 crews greet each other after Endeavour docks. (Credit: NASA)
Pettit's second flight was on STS-126, also aboard the space shuttle. EndeavorThis mission, known as ULF2, was intended to deliver supplies and equipment to the ISS. The mission also conducted EVAs to repair the starboard alpha solar rotary joint on the Station, although Pettit did not participate in these. He returned to Earth with Endeavor on November 30, 2008.
His third flight was on Soyuz TMA-03M, which launched to the ISS on December 21, 2011. He became part of the Expedition 30/31 station crews and helped operate the Canadarm2 robotic manipulator arm as it grappled the first SpaceX Dragon 1 cargo spacecraft in May 2012. Pettit also became the first person to enter a Dragon capsule in orbit, making him the first astronaut to enter a commercially operated spacecraft in orbit.
SpaceX's first Cargo Dragon 1 capsule for the COTS 2 demonstration mission before Don Pettit helped place the spacecraft into orbit. (Credit: NASA)
Pettit has spent a cumulative total of more than 369 days in space on his three missions prior to this flight. He has also performed two spacewalks, both on Expedition 6 to the ISS, and his cumulative EVA time is 13 hours and 17 minutes. He is currently NASA's oldest active astronaut and his experience includes not only three space missions, but also a six-week expedition to Antarctica to collect meteorites that survived entry into Earth's atmosphere.
Soyuz MS-26 is the 78th overall mission of the Soyuz 2.1a rocket subtype and the 11th crewed spaceflight (counting Virgin Galactic and New Shepard suborbital missions) this year. It is also the fifth mission of 2024 for this Soyuz subtype. Following the launch of MS-26, its crew has joined the nine ISS crew members, three Tiangong crew members, and four Polaris Dawn crew members in orbit. This has set a new record of 19 people in orbit at the same time.
Now that the spacecraft has arrived at the ISS, Expedition 71 will end and Expedition 72 will begin once Soyuz MS-25 leaves the station on Sept. 24. Ovchinin, Vagner and Pettit will serve on that expedition with Nick Hague, who has flown with Ovchinin twice, Aleksandr Gorbunov, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
(Main image: Soyuz MS-26 on the launch pad before flight. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)
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