Successful flight

Female space travelers docked with the ISS after two days

From left to right: Tracy Dyson, Oleg Novitsky and Marina Vasilevskaya docked at the International Space Station ISS on Monday.(Bild: AFP/NASA)

The "Soyuz MS-25" space capsule docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday. A Russian cosmonaut and two female space travelers from the USA and Belarus had set off from Kazakhstan in Central Asia on Saturday.

"Oleg Novitsky, Marina Vasilevskaya and Tracy Dyson have arrived at the station," the Russian space agency Roscosmos announced on Monday. This mission marks the first time that two women have flown on board a Soyuz capsule to the human outpost 400 kilometers above the Earth. The only other time there was a female duo was when returning from the ISS. The flight was also a first for Belarus, an ally of Russia. The 33-year-old cosmonaut Vasilevskaya, who works as a flight attendant for the state-owned company Belavia, is the first woman from her country to fly into space.

From left: Tracy Dyson, Oleg Novitsky and Marina Vasilevskaya(Bild: AFP/NASA)

Astronaut Tracy Dyson(Bild: APA/AFP/NASA)

The launch in Kazakhstan(Bild: AP)

(Bild: AP)

(Bild: AP)

Launch aborted on first attempt
The original launch had been planned two days earlier, but had to be aborted unexpectedly 20 seconds before ignition due to a technical problem.

According to Roskosmos, Vasilevskaya and Novitsky are due to return to Earth on April 6 with the American Loral O'Hara, who has been on the ISS since last September. Astronaut Dyson will remain on the ISS until September and will then start her journey home with cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub.

Despite Russia's war against Ukraine and the US sanctions, international cooperation in space travel continues. US astronauts regularly fly in Russian spaceships to the ISS and vice versa.