The same day as the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. A three-person crew made up of NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan, Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, and Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency are heading to space on top of a Russian Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan.
The trio will be joining the three current members of the International Space Station NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch, as well as Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin. All three have been aboard since March, when they launched to the ISS. For Hague and Ovchinin, that trip was actually their second launch to the station, after their first flight ended in an emergency landing. For Koch, it’s her fist stay on the ISS and it’s going to be a significant one. She’ll be staying on the station until February of 2020 which sets her up to break the record for longest continuous spaceflight by a woman.
