For over three decades, cosmonauts and other astronauts have ridden into space on top of Russia’s Soyuz rocket. Though the workhorse of the operated Russian space program has undergone upgrades over the years, its basic profile remains unchanged. Its stages separate and fall into designated areas in Kazakhstan and Russia minutes after launch. The crew capsule atop goes through two orbits to dock with the International Space Station, where it will carry Oleg Novitsky of Russia and Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus, as well as US astronaut Tracy Dyson and Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Andrey Pettit.
The Soyuz-2.1 launch spacecraft, which carried the trio to space, blasted off without any apparent trouble from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East. The mission was the third of seven to take place this year, despite tensions between Russia and the West over the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last month. The Soyuz’s RD-0110 engine fired as scheduled, and eight minutes after the blastoff, it entered orbit, a welcome relief for space officials following an automated safety system that halted a launch in March.
This Soyuz-2.1 version of the vehicle is equipped with a digital flight control system that allows it to adjust its trajectory in flight, which was impossible with the analog system on previous versions of the rocket. The new digital system also enables the Soyuz to use larger commercial satellites that need to be housed in a more extended payload fairing. The Soyuz 2.1 also uses the same kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants as its predecessors.
Two satellites designed to monitor the space weather around Earth and 53 small satellites, including two Iranian ones, were launched on Tuesday. The two Ionosfera-M satellites will become part of the space system that Russia is developing to monitor the ionosphere, which stretches from 50 to 400 miles (80 to 644 km) above the planet’s surface. The satellites will measure the ionosphere’s density to help improve global weather forecasting.
The rest of the satellites, including the Kowsar high-resolution imaging and Hodhod student satellites, are for research, communication, and education. The launch also included the first Russian-Chinese student satellite, Druzhba ATURK.