Q&A with Keith Gendreau, principal investigator of the first X-ray space communications experiment (members only)

Pettit will fly to the orbiting outpost alongside Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner on the Soyuz MS-26 mission. Liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome is set for 12:23 p.m. EDT (1623 UTC).

Running nearly a month late because of work to repair a damaged cable, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft was primed for launch early Wednesday to carry two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut to the International Space Station, boosting the lab’s crew back to six.

The Starlink 15-10 mission added 27 broadband internet satellites into the low Earth orbit constellation. SpaceX accomplished liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 9:28 p.m. PST (12:28 a.m. EST / 0528 UTC).