MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying three astronauts to the Worldwide Area Station blasted off Saturday, two days after its launch was aborted on the final minute.The spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, Russian Oleg Novitsky and Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus launched easily from the Russian-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan.The launch had been deliberate for Thursday however was halted by an computerized security system about 20 seconds earlier than the scheduled liftoff. The pinnacle of the Russian house company, Yuri Borisov, stated the launch abort was triggered by a voltage drop in an influence supply.The house capsule atop the rocket separated and went into orbit eight minutes after the launch and started a two-day, 34-orbit journey to the house station. If the launch had gone as scheduled on Thursday, the journey would have been a lot shorter, requiring solely two orbits. Docking is now anticipated at 1510 GMT Monday.
The three astronauts have been to affix the station’s crew consisting of NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, in addition to Russians Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Alexander Grebenkin.
Novitsky, Vasilevskaya and O’Hara are to return to Earth on April 6.The house station, which has served as a logo of post-Chilly Conflict worldwide cooperation, is now one of many final remaining areas of collaboration between Russia and the West amid tensions over Moscow’s army motion in Ukraine. NASA and its companions hope to proceed working the orbiting outpost till 2030.Russia has continued to depend on modified variations of Soviet-designed rockets for industrial satellites, in addition to crews and cargo to the house station.