LTC McClain '02 Safely Reaches Orbit

The Soyuz MS-11 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station at 6:31 a.m. EST Monday, December 3 (5:31 p.m. in Baikonur) and have safely reached orbit. At the time of launch, the station was flying about 250 miles over central Kazakhstan southwest of the capital of Astana, 405 miles ahead of the Soyuz as it leaves the launch pad. NASA astronaut Anne McClain, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency, and Oleg Konenenko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos have begun their six-hour trip to the orbital laboratory where they will live and work for the next six-and-a-half months. The arrival will briefly restore the station’s crew complement to six as they join Serena Auñón-Chancellor of NASA, Expedition 57 Commander Alexander Gerst of ESA (European Space Agency) and Sergey Prokopyev of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, who are scheduled to remain aboard the station until December 20. Read More