At 0727 GMT on 17 December a Soyuz FG was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam in Kazakhstan. The rocket’s payload, the Soyuz MS-07 spacecraft with Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, US astronaut Scott Tingle and Japanese astronaut, Norishige Kanai, who were on a four-month mission to the International Space Station.
Soyuz MS-07 is launched on a Soyuz FG Courtesy: NASA/Joel Kowsky
The launch had been brought forward from 27 December to 17 December to reduce the launch site’s Christmas work schedule and this change made the slower “two day rendezvous technique” with the ISS necessary due to the greater launch site to orbit geometry mismatch.
Update on 20 Dec 2017: Soyuz MS-07 docked with Rassvet module of ISS at 0839 GMT on 19 December 2017.
Update on 2 Jan 2018: Progress MS-06 Undocked from ISS at 0103 GMT on 28 December 2017. The spacecraft later fired its on board engines at 0410 GMT and re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere at 0443 GMT burning up at 0451 GMT with any surviving debris falling into the Pacific.
