Russion Soyuz launches U.S astronaut Scott Tingle to the ISS

Expedition 54 launches from Kazakhstan
Photo credit // NASA

Last night at 2:21am EST, a Soyuz rocket launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with Expedition 54. The launch carried 3 astronauts to the ISS, NASA's Scott Tingle, Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian Space Agency, and Norishige Kanai from Japan Aerospace and are expected to dock at 3:43am on Tuesday Dec. 19. The Soyuz spacecraft will dock with the station's Rassvet module and the hatch opening between the station and the spacecraft will occur at 5am EST. With the arrival of this crew, it will bring the population of the station back up to 6 crew members. The new crew will be conducting about 250 science investigations in Biology as well as Earth Science, human research, physical sciences, and developments in technology. Following their arrival, the crew size in the US module increased from 3 crew to 4 crew members to help maximize the time of research and increase productivity.