Russian Soyuz to launch to ISS for NASA veteran Don Pettit's first space trip in a decade

Sept. 11 (UPI) -- An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts will launch Wednesday for a six-month mission on the International Space Station.

Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner will depart with NASA astronaut Don Pettit at 12:23 p.m. EDT aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft atop a Soyuz rocket at Baikonur Cosmodrome in east-central Kazakhstan, a large former Society satellite nation just south of western Russia.

The three veteran astronauts will join the Expedition 71 space crew on the ISS for the next six months.

The Soyuz has a planned 3:33 p.m. EDT docking at the space station beginning about an hour prior with a 5:30 p.m. EDT planned opening between the two spacecraft which will be live streamed .

All three men have been to space before and this will be Pettit's fourth launch, adding to his accumulated 370 days in space.

Vagner previously launched in 2020 aboard Soyuz for Expeditions 62 and 63.

Ovchinin likewise has launched on multiple missions, all in onboard Soyuz, such as Expeditions 47 and 48 in 2016 to the ISS. He also did the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft launch on Oct. 11, 2018, that aborted safely after a rocket problem and Expeditions 59 and 60 in 2019, which was a successful retry following that abort.

Pettit's first mission on Expedition 6 on Nov. 23, 2002, on the space shuttle Endeavour's STS-113 mission was to last a little more than two months but was delayed on May 3, 2003, amid the Columbia disaster on Feb. 1., 2003 which killed seven astronauts.

His arrival back to Earth on the Soyuz TMA-1 spacecraft was successful but not without complications. A malfunction caused Pettit's craft to land nearly 300 miles off its expected target. In November 2008, Pettit also flew to space on the shuttle mission STS-126 and was aboard Soyuz TMA-03M with space station Expeditions 30 and 31 from Dec. 21, 2011 to July 1 the next year.

In March, a previous crewed Soyuz mission to the International Space Station from Kazakhstan had been scrubbed over technical issues.

One of my star trails from @Space_Station , blurring golden city lights with the arcing stars of deep space.

Composites like this are made from many images, creating a time history of earthly and cosmic phenomena that maps our universe as a function of time. The blue marks of... pic.twitter.com/w1lK39HFuP — Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) June 1, 2024

The ISS missions will transition from Expedition 71 to Expedition 72. Leaving on Russia's Soyuz MS-25 for the return back to Earth will be NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson with Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub.

Pettit, a noted NASA photographer who designed the Expedition 72 patch, said during a pre-launch interview last month that "it's a little different" each time a person goes to space, describing his experiences as a "home away from home."

"Like a cowboy that wants to be on a horse out in the range, I'm an astronaut that needs to be sitting on a rocket and flying in space," he told Spaceflight Now .

His photography goals once back in orbit will be to focus on nighttime images and on capturing an "interesting phenomenon" using new lenses. An example he said, is an "atmospheric phenomenon" associated with the aurora called STEVE, or strong thermal emission velocity enhancement.

Pettit said he sought insight from fellow NASA astronauts currently in space on the many changes that have taken place since his last trip to space 10 years ago.

"I was surprised at their answer," he said. "They said station is cleaner, more organized and the software tools we have for stowage and for doing inventory management and even our operating days through the scheduled timeline, these tools, these software tools are so much more efficient than what we had in the past."

He said the NASA crew in space now "were impressed" with "the efficiencies of operation" on the ISS compared to how things were 10 years ago or more.

Pettit, who says he has no immediate plans to step away from space travel, added nothing can replace the sensation of traveling back to space.

"There's just a certain facet of when I go into space that just fundamentally is just fundamentally on resonance with my soul," he said.