OREANDA-NEWS. The spacecraft Soyuz MS-16 with three crew members on board docked with the International Space Station (ISS).

The spaceship was launched on the rocket Soyuz-2.1a from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 08.05 UTC. A few minutes later it went into orbit and began the journey to the station.

Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner and American astronaut Christopher Cassidy are on board. At the ISS, they will be met by Russian Oleg Skripochka and Americans Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir. The arriving crew will spend 196 days in orbit. During this time two Russian cargo ships Progress, Japanese HTV-9 and American Cygnus should arrive. In addition, in May the arrival of the first ship Crew Dragon with astronauts on board is expected.