Two manned spacecraft “Soyuz MS” will fly to the ISS in 2021 according to a superfast scheme

This year, the superfast two-turn flight scheme is planned to launch two Soyuz MS human-crewed spacecraft with a crew on board. Rafail Murtazin, head of the ballistics department of the Rocket and Space Corporation (RSC) Energia, told TASS about this.

For the first time, the command of the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft, which was sent under the International Space Station (ISS) program in October last year, reached orbit using a two-turn scheme. Then the flight took only about three hours.

“ This year, we will try to conduct two flights of the Soyuz in a two-turn scheme, and for trucks – in a two-day one, because it is not so easy to provide the necessary“ narrow ”phase for all ships,” said Mr. Murtazin.

In particular, the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft will fly according to the superfast scheme, the launch of which with the Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle is scheduled for the coming Friday, April 9th. The prime crew includes Oleg Novitsky (Roscosmos) and Pyotr Dubrov (Roscosmos), as well as Mark Vande Hai (NASA). Their stand-ins are Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov, Oleg Artemiev, and NASA astronaut Anne McClain. The flight will last approximately three and a half hours.

The next human-crewed spacecraft, the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft, is to be launched in October this year.