Expedition 70: Launch Preparations in Kazakhstan | International Space Station

Expedition 70: Launch Preparations in Kazakhstan | International Space Station

Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara waits to have her Russian Sokol suit pressure checked.

Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara has her Russian Sokol suit pressure checked.

Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara, left, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko (Russia), center, and Nikolai Chub (Russia) don their Russian Sokol suits as they prepare for their Soyuz launch to the International Space Station.

Expedition 70 Roscosmos cosmonaut Nikolai Chub (Russia) dons his Russian Sokol suit.

Roscosmos cosmonaut Nikolai Chub (Russia) has his Russian Sokol suit pressure checked.

Expedition 70 Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko (Russia) dons his Russian Sokol suit. Mission commander Kononenko is a spaceflight veteran.

Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko (Russia) has his Russian Sokol suit pressure checked.

NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko (Олег Кононенко) and Nikolai Chub (Николай Чуб) of Russia launched on a Russian Soyuz 2.1a rocket at 11:44 a.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (8:44 p.m. Baikonur time) on Sept. 15, 2023. Their Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft docked with the International Space Station three hours later. This is the first spaceflight for O'Hara and Chub. Mission commander Kononenko is on his fifth trip to the International Space Station.

The trio joined the space station’s Expedition 69 crew of NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Frank Rubio, Roscosmos cosmonauts Dmitri Petelin, Konstantin Borisov, and Sergey Prokopyev of Russia, as well European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa. O’Hara will spend six months aboard the orbital laboratory, while Kononenko and Chub will both spend one year on the orbital outpost. 

Astronaut Loral O’Hara Official NASA Biography:

https://www.nasa.gov/content/loral-o-hara-nasa-astronaut

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.

Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center/Bill Ingalls

Capture Date: Sept. 15, 2023

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