Russia launches a NASA astronaut and 2 cosmonauts to the International Space Station
Liftoff occurred at 10:47 a.m. ET.
by Mike Wall · Space
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NASA Astronaut Anil Menon Soyuz MS-29 Launch - YouTube
Three people just launched to space aboard a Russian rocket today (July 14), and are now in orbit speeding toward the International Space Station.
NASA's Anil Menon and cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina lifted off atop a Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:47 a.m. EDT (1447 GMT; 7:47 p.m. local time in Baikonur).
Their Soyuz rocket executed nominal side booster separation about two minutes after launch, followed by second stage separation about 2.5 minutes later, as the rocket flew at 105 miles (169 kilometers) in altitude. Third stage orbital insertion and separation was completed at about 8 minutes and 46 seconds, putting Russia's Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft and crew on course to chase down the International Space Station (ISS).
The trio will catch up to the ISS after just two orbits, and are scheduled to dock with the outpost at about 1:56 p.m. EDT (1746 GMT).
You can watch rendezvous and arrival here at Space.com, beginning at 1:10 p.m. EDT (1710 GMT). There will be a bit of a break after docking, then coverage will resume at 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT) ahead of the opening of the hatches between the Soyuz and the ISS, which is expected around 3:55 p.m. EDT (1955 GMT).
The MS-29 trio will join the seven astronauts already living aboard the ISS — NASA's Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, and Chris Williams, the European Space Agency's Sophie Adenot, and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Sergei Mikaev, and Andrey Fedyaev of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
This will be the first spaceflight for Menon, who was selected as a NASA astronaut candidate in December 2021, in the agency's Group 23. He's married to Anna Menon, who was picked in the next astronaut candidate class, Group 24, in September 2025.
Anna Menon has already been to space, though not with NASA. In September 2024, while an employee of SpaceX, she flew on the company's Polaris Dawn mission to Earth orbit. That five-day flight, which was funded and commanded by current NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, featured the first-ever commercial spacewalk and reached a maximum altitude of 870 miles (1,400.7 kilometers) — higher than any previous crewed Earth-orbiting mission had gotten.
Anil Menon is a former SpaceX-er as well; he was the company's first-ever flight surgeon.
MS-29's flight is the second-ever space mission for both Dubrov and Kikina. Dubrov lived aboard the ISS from April 2021 to March 2022, and Kikina spend five months on the outpost, from October 2022 to March 2023.
Kikina, the only female member of Russia's active astronaut corps, flew to and from the ISS back then on SpaceX's Crew-5 mission. That was a big deal: She was the first Russian ever to fly on a private U.S. spacecraft, and the first cosmonaut to fly on any American space vehicle since December 2002, when cosmonauts Valery Korzun and Sergey Treshchov came back to Earth from the ISS aboard the space shuttle Endeavour.
The MS-29 trio will spend about eight months living and working on the orbiting lab. Menon will help conduct a wide variety of scientific experiments during that stretch.
"He will continue research to refine in-space production of semiconductor crystals to enable the large-scale manufacturing of components needed for high-performance computers, artificial intelligence, and improved medical devices," NASA officials wrote in a July 9 media advisory.
"Menon also will perform ultrasound using augmented reality and artificial intelligence methods that could eliminate the need for medical support from Earth on future space missions," they added.