A few hours ago, the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and, after a little more than three hours, reached the International Space Station with three new crew members on board. It docked with the Station’s Rassvet module. The ultra-fast track was used, which halves the journey duration and is used whenever the Station’s position makes it possible.
The three new members of the crew of the International Space Station, who complete the last phase of Expedition 73, are:
Sergey Vladimirvich Kud-Sverchkov. Born in Baikonur, then USSR and now Kazakhstan, he earned a degree in rocket engineering from Moscow State Technical University (MGTU). After working for RSC Energia for a few years as an engineer, he was selected as a cosmonaut candidate in 2008. In 2012, he became a test cosmonaut for Roscosmos. He already served on the International Space Station between October 2020 and April 2021 as part of Expedition 63/64.
Sergei Nikolayevich Mikayev. Born on August 15, 1986, in Irkutsk, in the then USSR and now Russia, he graduated as an air operations and air traffic management engineer from the Krasnodar Higher Military Aviation Institute in 2008. He enlisted in the Russian Air Force, where he served as a pilot and later as a trainer. In 2018, he was selected as a cosmonaut candidate by the Russian space agency Roscosmos. This is his first space mission.
Christopher Leigh Williams. Born on October 19, 1983, in New York City, USA, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in physics from Stanford in 2005 and then earned a Ph.D. in physics from MIT in 2012, pursuing research on the development of radio telescope instruments and cosmological data processing techniques. He has participated in various research projects in the field of astrophysics and has also completed the medical physicist internship program, participating in medical programs related to the use of technologies for medical therapies and examinations. In 2021, he was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA. This is his first space mission.
The three new crew members will spend about eight months on the International Space Station. Within the next two weeks, Expedition 74 will begin, and the three crew members who are finishing their missions will return to Earth on the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft.
