MS-23, the Soyuz spacecraft Russia despatched to deliver cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio again to Earth, has arrived on the Worldwide Area Station. Per , Russia’s Roscosmos Area Company introduced early Sunday morning that the unmanned vessel docked with the ISS at 7:58PM ET on Saturday night. , the flight launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on February twenty fourth.

MS-23 was initially scheduled to launch later this yr, however Roscosmos was compelled to push up the flight after MS-22 – Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio’s authentic return craft – in December following a micrometeoroid strike. The incident put Roscosmos and NASA in a tough spot. If an emergency broke out on the ISS and your complete crew needed to evacuate, it wasn’t clear whether or not MS-22 might carry its crew safely again to Earth. Roscosmos and NASA ultimately settled on a contingency plan that may have seen MS-22 transport Prokopyev and Petelin, whereas Rubio would have hitched a experience on the SpaceX Crew-5 Dragon. Fortunately, the 2 companies weren’t compelled to place that plan to the check.

With MS-23 safely docked with the ISS, Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio will stay on the house station till no less than September. The three have been initially as a result of full their mission in March. Within the meantime, Roscomos plans to deliver MS-22 again to Earth someday subsequent month.