From two-day to ultra-short flights
In 2020, the Russian spacecraft Soyuz MS-17 docked with the ISS, having performed the first ever ultra-short two-orbit rendezvous. It used to take up to two days to chase down the ISS, but this record-breaking flight took just 3 hours 3 minutes. We investigate how Roscosmos achieved this breakthrough, and whether future astronauts and cosmonauts will soon be able to fly to the ISS faster than some people on Earth get to work.
HOW FAR IS IT TO THE ISS?
Poyekhali!
On April 12, 1961, at 09:07 Moscow time, the Soviet spacecraft Vostok 1 lifted off for the first time from the Tyuratam missile test range (now the Baikonur Cosmodrome) in Kazakhstan with a person on board. After 108 minutes of flight and one loop in near-Earth orbit, it successfully returned to terra firma, ushering in a new era of crewed spaceflight and making Yuri Gagarin a household name ever since.
