The International Space Station’s Expedition 61 crew safely docked with the ISS last night after six hours in flight. The thrilling journey began around 2.57pm BST (9.47am EDT) with liftoff from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The launch marked a historic moment for spaceflight as it saw the first astronaut from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reach the ISS. Astronaut Hazzaa Ali Almansoori was joined by colleagues Jessica Meir from NASA and Oleg Skripochka from Russia’s Roscosmos space agency.
The three astronauts flew to the ISS on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which will stay with the ISS for eight days.
The Soyuz MS-12 capsule docked with the ISS around 8.42pm BST (3.42pm EDT).
The docking manoeuvres were broadcast to the world from the ISS, from 250 miles (402km) up in space.
Expedition 61 joined the six astronauts already on board the ISS, representing Expedition 59 and 60.
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Together, the nine astronauts represent the largest ISS crew to ever orbit the planet at once since 2015.
Mr Almansoori will only spend eight days on the space station and is expected to return to Earth on October 3.
The astronaut will fly back onboard the Soyuz MS-12 together with US astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin.
The two men have already completed more than 200 days in space.
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Ms Meir and Mr Skripochka will spend a total of six months on the ISS.
The remaining astronauts living on the space station are NASA’s Christina Koch and Andrew Morgan, European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Luca Parmitano and Russia’s Alexander Skvortsov.
NASA said: “The Expedition 61 crew will spend more than six months conducting about 250 science investigations in fields such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences, and technology development.
“Work on the unique microgravity laboratory advances scientific knowledge and demonstrates new technologies, making research breakthroughs that will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration of the Moon and Mars.”
Expedition 61 is also tasked with installing new batteries on the space station’s solar arrays.
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The astronauts will also leave the ISS to upgrade and repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiments.
The external instrument studies the cosmos in search of dark matter.
NASA said: “An additional highlight of the upcoming investigations the crew will facilitate on the orbiting laboratory is the AstroRad Vest.
“The vest will use the International Space Station as a platform to test the new garment used to protect astronauts from exposure to increased radiation as they prepare to travel farther into deep space to the Moon and later Mars.”