On July 20, 2019 at 19:28:21 Moscow Time, the launch vehicle Soyuz-FG carrying the manned spacecraft Soyuz MS-13 lifted-off from Launch Pad No.1 (“Gagarin’s Launch Pad”) of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
All the flight phases went normally.
At 19:37 Moscow Time Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft successfully separated from the third stage of the launch vehicle in the target orbit. At present it continues its free flight to the International Space Station guided by specialists of the Lead Operations Control Team for the ISS Russian Segment at the Mission Control Center (Korolev).
The launch vehicle Soyuz-FG put the spacecraft into an orbit with the following parameters:
- minimal altitude above the Earth surface — 198.1 km;
- maximum altitude above the Earth surface — 267.1 km;
- orbital period — 88.85 minutes;
- orbital inclination — 51.65 degrees.
Rendezvous of the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft with the space station and docking with the docking port on the Service Module Zvezda are to be carried out automatically using the four-orbit rendezvous profile.
The Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft with three crew members on board docked in the automated mode with Russia’s Zvezda module of the International Space Station (ISS) at 1:47 Moscow time.
Flying onboard the spacecraft are: cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov (commander), astronauts Luca Parmitano (flight engineer 1) and Andrew Morgan (flight engineer 2), the call sign of the crew are “Utesy” (“Cliffs”). Getting ready to meet their colleagues onboard the International Space Station are Alexei Ovchinin, Nick Hague, and Christina Koch.
