The launch clears the way for an American astronaut to return to Earth on March 30 aboard another Russian spacecraft.
Three cosmonauts blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Friday, setting off after the International Space Station to replace three crew members — two Russians and an American — who are heading home at the end of the month to close out a record-setting flight. The launch comes amid high tension and strained relations in the wake of Russia’s ongoing of Ukraine, its cancellation of cooperative commercial ventures in response to sanctions and a steady stream of fiercely critical comments from the director of the Russian space agency, raising concern about the station’s future. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Friday morning he’s hopeful the U.S. and Russia will continue their decades-long cooperation in space that extends back to the Cold War. But he said the agency is working on contingency plans just in case. « We have our problems with President Putin on Earth, » Nelson said in an interview with CBS News. « Thank goodness we’ve seen Europe come together and a strengthening of NATO as we’ve never seen before. « The interesting thing is, even back in 1975 during the Soviet Union, the Cold War, we were able to have cooperation in civilian space with the Russians, in (the) Apollo-Soyuz (project). And that has continued. This very day, three cosmonauts (are launching) from Kazakhstan to the International Space Station. « They will join four Americans, two Russians and a German astronaut, » Nelson continued. « That’s saying this cooperation, this professional relationship between our astronauts and cosmonauts, it’s consistent, and it’s going to stay. » Soyuz MS-21/67S commander Oleg Artemyev, a space veteran, and two rookies, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov, strapped in atop a Soyuz 2.1a rocket and took off from Baikonur at 11:55 a.m. EDT (8:55 p.m. local time). « Let’s work in space, together, » a Russian, presumably Artemyev, said in a translated comment a moment after liftoff. Eight minutes and 45 seconds later, the Soyuz was in space and on course for a two-orbit rendezvous with the space station.
