On March 18, 2022 at 15:55 UTC the Russian “Soyuz MS-21” spacecraft was launched from Baykonur Cosmodrome. The space vehicle was orbited by the Russian “Soyuz-2.1a” rocket-carrier. The spacecraft is piloted by 3 Russian cosmonauts: Commander, Oleg Artemyev (center); flight-engineer 1, Denis Matveev (right); flight-engineer 2, Sergey Korsakov (left).

The launch was performed from Launch Site 31 (Baykonur Cosmodrome Site 31). The “Soyuz MS-21” space vehicle is to dock with the International Space Station in about 3 hours after the launch. Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, Sergey Korsakov will join current ISS expedition members Anton Shkaplerov, Pyotr Dubrov, Mark Vande Hei, Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, Kayla Barron, Matthias Maurer.