Russia's Soyuz capsule carrying 3 astronauts spotted approaching space station; WATCH

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio along with cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin entered the International Space Station (ISS) after being launched from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome on September 21. The trio lifted off in Russia's Soyuz 2.1a carrier rocket and their Soyuz MS-22 capsule docked at the station at 10:36 pm IST. About two hours after docking, all three members joined seven others already aboard the ISS as part of the Expedition 67 group. 

Interestingly, the historic launch was captured on camera showing the MS-22 capsule approaching the space station over South America. In the video shared on the space station's Twitter handle, the spacecraft was seen drifting over South America before docking at the space station's Rassvet module. 

European astronaut Samantha Christoforetti also took riveting pictures of the MS-22 launch from space while the spacecraft was on its way to the space station. According to NASA, this marked the first spaceflight for Rubio and Petelin whereas it was the second for Prokopyev and they will stay aboard the orbital outpost for the next six months. 

The launch was carried out by Russia's space agency Roscosmos under the cross-flights agreement with the US space agency NASA. Notably, outer space is currently the only area where the two countries are cooperating; the relations between them otherwise have taken a severe hit as the US has slapped numerous sanctions on Russia for attacking Ukraine. 

What's next?

In a few days, the current ISS commander Oleg Artemyev along with Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov will make their return to make way for the Crew-5 astronauts. Crew-5 is NASA's mission which will be launched by SpaceX from the Kennedy Space Center at 10:15 pm IST on October 3. Notably, Crew-5 is the mission that also comes under the cross-flights agreement and would see Russia's female cosmonaut Anna Kikina board a commercial US spacecraft for the first time ever. 

The team of Crew-5, apart from Kikina, includes NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada and JAXA's (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Koichi Wakata. Following their entry into the ISS, the Crew-4 astronauts-- Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines, Jessica Watkins and Samantha Christoforetti-- will return after their six-month-long stay.