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Soyuz MS-15 on its way to the ISS

The Soyuz-FG carrier rocket with the crewed Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft successfully lift off at 13:57 UTC on September 25, 2019 from the launch pad No.1 (Gagarin’s Start) at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. All the flight stages went as expected.

At 14:06 UTC, the spacecraft separated from the third stage of the carrier rocket at the target orbit and is now in an autonomous flight on its way to the International Space Station being under control of the Main Operative Group of the Russian segment of the ISS at the Korolyov-based Mission Control Center.

Soyuz MS-15 approach to the ISS and berthing to the Zvezda service module is planned to be performed automatically according to a four-orbit scheme. The docking is scheduled to take place in about 6 hours, at 19:45 UTC.

The ship crew includes Soyuz Commander Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos, Flight Engineer-1 Jessica Meir of NASA, and Flight Engineer-2 Hazza Al Mansouri (UAE), the crew callsign is Sarmaty.

The spacecraft also carries 180 kg of cargo for the Russian and American ISS segment crews: sets of equipment for space experiments, medical, biological and geophysical research, life support means, symbolic activities set and personal belongings of the crew.

This was the final Soyuz-FG launch from the launch pad No.1 (Gagarin’s Start) at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The launch pad will be modernized for the launches of the Soyuz-2 family carrier rockets. The modernization will also allow renovating the cosmodrome ground infrastructure, which in turn will help to enhance the Russian space industry competiveness in the international market and commercialize the national technologies.

Gagarin’s Start was created under the management of Vladimir Barmin, with the TsENKI subsidiary (part of Roscosmos) named after him. The main objects of the launch pad No. 1 are the launch position and technical position, which had been built by the beginning of 1957 and allowed commencing the tests of the R-7, the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile.