Two Russian cosmonauts and an astronaut from the United States have docked with the International Space Station (ISS) after blasting off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan amid raging tensions between Moscow and Washington over the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s Roscosmos space agency said cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and US NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara lifted off on Friday onboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft.
The crew docked at the ISS three hours later, at 18:53 GMT, the Russian space agency said.
At the orbiting station, the trio will join the crew of three Russians, two Americans and one Japanese, along with a representative of the European Space Agency.
The ISS remains a rare venue for cooperation between the US and Russia, whose ties broke down after Moscow unleashed its offensive in Ukraine last year.
Russia’s Kononenko alluded to the strained geopolitical tensions during a pre-flight press conference on Thursday, saying that “unlike on earth” cosmonauts and astronauts took care of each other in space.
“We hear each other there, and we understand each other, and we are very sensitive to our relationships,” he said. “We always take care of each other.”
