SOYUZ MISSION

Dec. 4, 2018

A Soyuz rocket carrying Russian, American and Canadian astronauts took off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan and reached orbit, in the first manned mission to ISS since a failed launch in October.

About:

  • Soyuz is a series of spacecraft designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau in the 1960s that remains in service today. The Soyuz spacecraft is launched on a Soyuz rocket.

  • All Soyuz spacecraft are launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

  • The Soyuz is the only means of reaching the International Space Station (ISS) since the U.S. retired the space shuttle in 2011.

  • The recent launch was the first manned launch for the Soviet-era Soyuz since October 11, when a rocket carrying Russia’s Aleksey Ovchinin and U.S. astronaut Nick Hague failed just minutes after blast-off, forcing the pair to make an emergency landing.

  • The failed launch — the first such incident in Russia’s post-Soviet history — raised concerns about the state of the Soyuz programme.

Source : The Hindu

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