ABORTED – Roscosmos – Soyuz 2.1a – Soyuz MS-25 – LS 31/6 – Baikonur KAZ – March 21, 2024

Soyuz MS-25 is a planned Russian crewed Soyuz spaceflight to launch from Baikonur on 21 March 2024 to the International Space Station from Launch Site 31/6 of the Russian Cosmodrome Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

Because of the launch abort of Soyuz MS-25 20 seconds before the planned lift-off on March 21, planned live streams of docking and hatch opening have been canceled and postponed.

We’ll make sure to keep you posted.

If you want to learn more about the biggest and oldest Cosmodrome in the world, visit our interactive Baikonur map on Space Affairs: https://www.space-affairs.com/en/explorers/the-road-to-the-stars-5-days-expedition-cosmodrome-baikonur

American astronaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson replaced Alexander Grebenkin as a part of the Soyuz-Dragon crew swap system of having at least American and Russian crew members on ISS. This allows continuous space station occupation by the US and Russia and keeps backup crew scenarios to prevent vehicle either vehicle grounding like the Soyuz MS-10 launch failure or to compensate for delays in the launch of crew rotation missions of vehicles like SpaceX Crew-3 that was delayed due to unfavorable launch weather conditions.

On a Soyuz mission, this is the first non-Russian launch of two women astronauts/cosmonauts, Tracy Caldwell-Dyson from the US and Marina Vasilevskaya from Belarus. The spacecraft commander is retired Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, born in Chervyen, Minsk Voblast, Byelorussian SSR, USSR (now Belarus).

Dyson will launch on the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft and spend approximately six months aboard the International Space Station. She will travel to the station with Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus, both of whom will spend approximately 12 days aboard the orbital complex as a part of 21st ISS visiting expedition.

After completing her expedition, Dyson will return to Earth on September 24, 2024, with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub on the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft. Kononenko and Chub have been on ISS since September 2023 with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara on the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft. Kononenko and Chub will remain aboard the orbital laboratory for about one year. If the mission lasts 300–365 days, Kononenko will have spent 1,036–1,101 days in space, exceeding the current record of 878 days by Gennady Padalka. He will thus also become the first person to stay 1,000 days in space. O’Hara, who will spend six months aboard the space station, will return with Novitsky and Vasilevskaya on the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft.

source