Soyuz MS-16


Soyuz MS-16 is a Soyuz spaceflight launched on 9 April 2020, which transported three members of the Expedition 62/63 crew to the International Space Station.
This flight was the first crewed launch using the Soyuz 2.1a rocket, and the first crewed Russian mission not to launch from Gagarin's Start — the pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome that was before its planned modernisation for Soyuz-2 rockets after Soyuz MS-15 — since Soyuz MS-02 in 2016.

Crew

Backup crew

Crew notes

This flight would have marked the first spaceflight for rookie cosmonaut Nikolai Tikhonov, who has been removed from several ISS flights due to delays to the Russian Nauka laboratory module starting with Soyuz MS-04. Tikhonov and Babkin were replaced by their backups, Ivanishin and Vagner, for medical reasons. Tikhonov, the original Soyuz commander, suffered an eye injury, and Russian officials opted to swap both Russian crew members with the back-up crew.
Tikhonov and Babkin were expected to fly on Soyuz MS-17, scheduled for October 2020 when Tikhonov's eye injury was set to have had healed, although the two have been kept back until at least Soyuz MS-18, currently targeting launch for March 2021, in order for them to be aboard the station for the arrival of the aforementioned Nauka laboratory module, currently set for launch around May 2021.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the crew's families and media representatives could not watch the launch in Baikonur, and the usual pre-launch traditions dating back to Yuri Gagarin's flight on Vostok 1 were cancelled.

Mission

Soyuz MS-16 was launched on 9 April 2020 at 08:05:06 UTC. The Soyuz 2.1a booster's first and core stage engines ignited on time and lifted the rocket away from its firing stand at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, with cosmonaut Anatoli Ivanishin, joined by the rookie Ivan Vagner on the left and astronaut Chris Cassidy on the right. Like Ivanishin, Cassidy is making his third space flight. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted congratulations: "Chris Cassidy, Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner are safely in orbit, no virus is stronger than the human desire to explore. I'm grateful to the entire @NASA and @roscosmos teams for their dedication to making this launch a success".
The International Space Station passed directly over the launch site about three minutes before the launch and the booster climbed directly into the plane of its orbit. Six orbits after that, at 14:13:18 UTC, the Soyuz docked at the Poisk docking compartment.