🚀 Soyuz | 🛰 Soyuz MS-27
Launch date: April 8, 2025 05:57 UTC
Payload: Soyuz MS-27
Location: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Vehicle: Soyuz
A Russian Soyuz rocket will launch NASA astronaut Jonny Kim and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky aboard the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, to the International Space Station on April 8, 2025 at 1:47 a.m. EDT (0557 GMT). The mission is crewed and the crew is set for about an eight-month stay aboard the ISS, joining Expeditions 72 and 73. Live coverage will be available from NASA and Space.com, with docking expected a few hours after launch. This will be the first spaceflight for Kim and Zubritsky and the third for Ryzhikov.
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Site 1, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Site 1, often referred to as Gagarin’s Start, is the oldest and most iconic launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Commissioned in the late 1950s, it was the site of the world’s first human spaceflight on April 12, 1961, when Yuri Gagarin was launched into orbit aboard Vostok 1. Since then, it has served as the primary pad for crewed missions to low Earth orbit, including those to the International Space Station.
Over decades, Site 1 has seen the launch of numerous historic missions and a variety of vehicles, notably the R-7 family and Soyuz-2 rockets. Although its utilization has decreased due to the construction of newer pads and modernization efforts, it remains a symbol of the dawn of human space exploration and a site of significant heritage in both Soviet and Russian space history.