SpaceX rocket heads to ISS with NASA crew and Russian on board


by Joe Skipper and Steve Gorman

Oct 6 (Reuters) – A rocket developed by billionaire Elon Musk’s company SpaceX blasted off from Florida on Wednesday bound for the International Space Station (ISS) with one Russian astronaut and three astronauts from the U.S. space agency (Nasa) on board.

Anna Kikina, 38, the only active-duty female cosmonaut with Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, is part of the mission, making it the first spaceflight with a Russian national launched from US soil in two decades.

As the rocket entered Earth orbit, the Russian astronaut thanked Nasa, Roscosmos and their ISS partners over the radio for “giving us this great opportunity”.

“We are so happy to be together,” Anna Kikina said.

A senior Roscosmos official said shortly after the launch that the flight marked “a new phase in our cooperation” with NASA.

Nasa-Roscosmos relations have been tested since Russia invaded Ukraine in February and the United States imposed sanctions on Moscow.

The SpaceX launch vehicle, consisting of a Falcon 9 rocket topped with a Crew Dragon capsule dubbed Endurance, took off in clear skies from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.

The four crew members were due to reach the ISS on Thursday evening, to begin a 150-day science mission aboard the orbiting laboratory.

(Reporting by Joe Skipper in Cape Canaveral and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington; French version Dina Kartit, editing by Sophie Louet)










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