The International Space Station (ISS), 400 kilometers from Earth. - RANDY BRESNIK / NASA / AFP

In the middle of a coronavirus pandemic, two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) this Thursday.

At 10.05 am French time, the American Chris Cassidy from NASA and the Russians Anatoli Ivanichine and Ivan Vagner from Roskosmos will take off from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

A departure without audience

Although their six-month mission on board the ISS was maintained despite the Covid-19, several rituals were however canceled to limit the risks of spreading the disease. Their families and journalists were therefore not invited to the traditional press conference before departure on Wednesday. The latter therefore took place by videoconference, without audience, in a rather dull atmosphere. "Instead of talking to cameras, we would be talking to people right now," said Chris Cassidy, referring to these exchanges, which usually take place in a good mood.

The 50-year-old astronaut, who is going into space for the third time, admitted that the crew was "affected" by this lack of human contact. "But we understand that the whole world is also affected by the same crisis," he added. As before each space mission, the three men and their liners had been placed in quarantine, which this time started earlier to prevent them from contracting the virus before takeoff.

A new rocket for launch

As of March 12, the crew was confined to the training center of the City of Stars, near Moscow, and had to ignore the customary visit to the tomb of the first man in space, Iouri Gagarin , at the foot of the Kremlin. Thursday's launch will be the first on board a Soïouz-2.1a rocket, the Russian space agency Roskosmos having last year stopped operating the older Soïouz-FG. This new model, used for unmanned launches since 2004, is based on a digital control system and not analog as for the previous vehicles.

The three men will join on board the orbital laboratory cosmonaut Oleg Skripotchka and astronauts Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir, who are scheduled to return from the ISS on Earth on April 17. The ISS usually accommodates six people at a time and has a living space of 388 cubic meters, more than a six-bedroom house, according to NASA. These conditions may seem enviable to more than a third of Terrans currently experiencing containment measures decided to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

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