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The Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, carrying three new members for Expeditions 64 and 65, is currently awaiting launch to the International Space Station at 07:42 UTC, which is 03:42 EDT or 12:42 local time at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on Friday, April 9. 

The launch comes three days before the 60th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s groundbreaking orbital flight when he became the first member of the human race to reach space

Fanfare and celebrations will mark the occasion, as does the name given to this Soyuz spacecraft — an exceptionally rare event for the Russian space program which usually does not bequeath individual names to their spaceships (though callsigns chosen by crewmembers are standard for Russian crew flights)

For Soyuz MS-18, Roscosmos has named the Soyuz spacecraft Yuri A

Overall, Soyuz MS-18 will be the 146th launch of a crewed Soyuz spacecraft, which began human flight operations on April 23, 1967 with the first generation of the craft

Soyuz (spacecraft) has since undergone numerous upgrades and improvements, with the MS-series of crew vehicles being the current variant

After a successful launch and automated rendezvous, Soyuz MS-18 is scheduled to dock to the Station’s Rassvet module at 11:07 UTC, 07:07 EDT. 

Location of the International Space Station in relation to Baikonur at the time of Soyuz MS-18’s planned launch

With docking, there will be 10 people aboard the International Space Station until Soyuz MS-17 departs for a landing in Kazakhstan on April 16

The Soyuz MS-18 crew was originally supposed to be all-Russian, with Novitsky, Dubrov joined by Sergey Korsakov — with Anton Shkaplerov, Andrey Babkin (originally), and Dmitry Petelin as the backup crew

This led to a barter agreement between NASA and Roscosmos to fly an American astronaut on the Soyuz MS-18 mission in exchange for Russian cosmonauts flying aboard the US Commercial Crew vehicles to the ISS. 

Even before the crew swap was agreed, the Soyuz MS-18 backup crew was changed due to medical issues with Babkin, who was replaced by Oleg Artemyev. 

However, unlike the vast majority of Soyuz crew missions to the Station since 2003, Vande Hei and Dubrov will not return with the craft they launched on

During Expedition 65, the Soyuz MS-18 crew will be joined in late-April by the crew of SpaceX’s Crew-2 mission, consisting of NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough (Commander) and Megan McArthur (Pilot) as well as Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Aki Hoshide (Flight Engineer) and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet (Flight Engineer)

Crew-2 and Soyuz MS-18 will both deliver the full Expedition crew of seven to the Station, who will take over from the current seven occupants

It is possible, based on current schedules, that Pyotr Dubrov may also see an addition to Nauka in the form of the Prichal module, which is currently scheduled for launch no earlier than November 24, 2021

The Soyuz MS-18 mission, as the first crewed launch of 2021, marks the start of a busy and eventful time in the history of the International Space Station and of human spaceflight, with up to nine launches carrying human beings scheduled for this year from Kazakhstan, the United States, and China

(Lead image: The Soyuz 2.1a rocket with Soyuz MS-18 on the launch pad at Baikonur. Credit: Roscosmos)