Three-person Russian Soyuz rocket launches to the International Space Station days after a malfunction

 Three-person Russian Soyuz rocket launches to the International Space Station days after a malfunction

 An unsuccessful launch on Thursday due to a voltage drop in a power source was followed by the successful landing on the International Space Station.

Two days after its launch was abruptly canceled, a Russian Soyuz rocket carrying three astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) lifted off on Saturday.

From the Russian-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan, the spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, Russian Oleg Novitsky, and Belarusian Marina Vasilevskaya launched without incident.

Eight minutes after launch, the space capsule atop the rocket separated and entered orbit. After that, it started its two-day, 34-orbit journey to the space station.

The three astronauts, who are Russians Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Alexander Grebenkin, and NASA astronauts Loral O'Hara, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, are scheduled to join the station's crew.

On April 6, Novitsky, Vasilevskaya, and O'Hara are scheduled to return to Earth.

Amidst tensions following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the space station—which has represented post-Cold War international cooperation—is currently one of the few areas of cooperation between Russia and the West.

Up until 2030, NASA and its partners intend to keep running the orbiting station.

For the transportation of personnel and supplies to the space station, as well as for commercial satellites, Russia has continued to rely on modified Soviet-built rockets.

Aborted launch

 An inbuilt safety mechanism stopped the launch, which was scheduled for Thursday, around 20 seconds before it was supposed to take off.

The launch was canceled due to a voltage drop in a power source, according to Yuri Borisov, the chief of the Russian space agency.

An important setback for the Russian space program was the launch abort.

It happened after a Soyuz rocket launch mishap in October 2018 that sent NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos's Alexei Ovchinin to the International Space Station (ISS) crashing less than two minutes after takeoff and sending their rescue capsule on a treacherous journey down to a safe landing.

At a height of roughly 50 km (31 miles), the capsule disconnected from the malfunctioning Soyuz rocket, giving Hague and Ovchinin a brief moment of weightlessness. They then experienced six to seven times the gravitational pull experienced on Earth as they descended at an oblique angle.

For Russia's manned program, the 2018 launch failure was the first of its kind in more than thirty years.

The journey would have only required two orbits if the launch on Thursday had gone according to plan. Docking is now anticipated on Monday at 15:10 GMT.