Soyuz MS-06 was a Soyuz spaceflight which launched on 13 September 2017. It transported three members of the Expedition 53 crew to the International Space Station. MS-06 was the 135th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. The crew consisted of a Russian commander, and two American flight engineers. It returned to Earth on 28 February 2018 after 168 days in orbit.

With NASA’s record-breaking astronaut Dr. Peggy Whitson joining fellow NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and former Station Commander and Soyuz MS-04 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin for a safe touchdown on the Kazakh steppes, the Station has been down to just three crew members for almost two weeks.

The Expedition 53-54 crew consists of Soyuz Commander Misurkin of Roscosmos in charge of the spacecraft, aided by flight engineers Vande Hei and Acaba of NASA, ready to take up their roles on the orbital complex during a five-and-a-half month mission.

That journey for the crew began with the Soyuz FG lofting the Soyuz MS-06 into orbit 8 minutes 45 seconds following liftoff, after which the vehicle passed over a communications and data tracking ground station in Eastern Russia at the Vostochny Cosmodrome.

Here, initial orbital parameters were determined so controllers at Mission Control Moscow could provide formal permission for Soyuz MS-06 to perform a fast track rendezvous with the Station.

Had the orbital parameters read by Vostochny not aligned with those needed for a fast track rendezvous or if Vostochny was unable to verify certain parameters, Soyuz MS-06 could have instead implemented a 2-day orbital rendezvous – which is always available as a backup option.

Under the preferred quick rendezvous plan, as taken, Soyuz MS-06 performed four Delta Velocity (DV) burns to change its overall velocity by 53.362 m/s and properly refine its orbit toward the Station.

Soyuz then began an automated rendezvous sequence with the ISS.

With a flyaround, station keeping and then final approach, the Soyuz gracefully closed in on docking with the ISS, which took place at 02:55 UTC on Wednesday.

Following soft dock and hard dock, pressurization of the vestibule between the two spacecraft then occurred, followed by hatch opening at which time the Station’s three new crew members moved into their new home.

The arriving crew were welcomed on board by Expedition 53 Commander Randy Bresnik of NASA and Flight Engineers Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos and Paolo Nespoli of the ESA (European Space Agency).

The Visiting Vehicle comings and goings will continue, with the next event scheduled to be the departure of SpaceX’s CRS-12 Dragon. The spacecraft is set to unberth and return for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday.