The Russian Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) at around 6 p.m. on the 8th Korean time. Korean-American Jonny Kim, 41, is on board the spacecraft. Jonny Kim is an astronaut affiliated with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
According to the Associated Press and others, the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 2:47 p.m. Korean time. It arrived at the ISS three hours after launch.
Russia launched the spacecraft to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory in World War II. On board the spacecraft are Jonny Kim and Russian astronauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Aleksey Kubasov.
The astronauts aboard the spacecraft are expected to stay at the ISS for about eight months. After conducting several scientific investigations here, they are scheduled to return to Earth on Dec. 9.
The presence of a NASA astronaut on a Russian spacecraft is due to an agreement made in July 2022 between NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). The two agencies are launching each other’s astronauts on their respective spacecraft to the ISS to secure alternative transportation in case of emergencies.
Jonny Kim was born in 1984 to a family of Korean immigrants in Los Angeles, California. After graduating from high school in 2002, he enlisted in the Navy, where he gained various special operations qualifications as a special warfare operator. He also majored in mathematics at the University of San Diego, and earned a medical doctorate from Harvard University. At the same time, he was selected as a NASA astronaut.
Jonny Kim was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017. This mission marks his first space flight.