Members of the International Space Station (ISS) expedition 55/56, NASA astronauts Andrew Feustel (R) and Richard Arnold (L) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev walk shortly before leaving to board the Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft at the Baikonur cosmodrome on March 21, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / POOL / SHAMIL ZHUMATOV (Photo credit should read SHAMIL ZHUMATOV/AFP/Getty Images)
Two NASA astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket bound for the International Space Station on Wednesday.
Soyuz commander Oleg Artemyev, flight engineer Andrew “Drew” Feustel and Richard “Ricky” Arnold launched aboard the Soyuz MS-08/54S spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:44 p.m. EDT (GMT-4; 11:44 p.m. local time).
The capsule carrying the trio should dock with the ISS at approximately 3:41 p.m. Friday. They’ll join Expedition 55 commander Anton Shkaplerov, NASA astronaut Scott Tingle and Japanese crewmate Norishige Kanai. Three other crew members — Alexander Misurkin, Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba — returned to Earth on Feb. 27.
Shkaplerov, Tingle and Kanai are scheduled to return to Earth on June 3.
