Takeoff of the Soyuz capsule from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on October 14, 2020, irection the International Space Station.

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Sputnik / SIPA

An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts arrived on the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday after a journey of barely three hours, a new speed record for the Russian Soyuz program.

Departing at 5:45 am from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft, in which Kathleen Rubins, Sergei Ryzhikov and Sergei Kud-Svertchkov were seated, docked at the Orbital Station at 8:48 am.

Welcome back to the @Space_Station!

With the capture of their space capsule confirmed at 4:48 am ET, @NASA_Astronauts Kate Rubins and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov have docked with the @Space_Station.

pic.twitter.com/AMungFkTTX

- NASA (@NASA) October 14, 2020

Three minutes ahead of the timing

"A new record has been set (...) The total time between the launch and docking of the Soyuz was 3 hours and 3 minutes", greeted in a statement the Russian space agency Roskosmos a few minutes after this docking at the Station , in orbit 408 kilometers above the Earth.

“Three hours and three minutes”, for his part wrote on Twitter the boss of Roskosmos, Dmitry Rogozine, to greet this new record.

The three scientists' spacecraft arrived four minutes before the scheduled time.

The fastest flights to the ISS have so far taken around six hours.

This new performance is made possible thanks to a new guidance system making it possible to reach the ISS in just two orbits, against at least three previously.

This system had been tested in April 2019 with a Progress vessel, used to supply the International Station with equipment.

The three scientists joined the current occupants Chris Cassidy (Nasa), Anatoly Ivanichine and Ivan Vagner (Roskosmos) on the Orbital Station, whose return to Earth is scheduled for October 22.

In quarantine since March

This launch has a special resonance for Kathleen Rubins, whose second mission in space is and who celebrates her 42 years on Wednesday.

A trained microbiologist, she notably worked on the Ebola virus before being selected to become an astronaut.

Sergey Ryzhikov is a trained military pilot and the most experienced of the three: he has already spent 173 days in space, against 115 for Kathleen Rubins.

As for Sergei Kud-Svertchkov, 37, this is his first flight.

Special precautions have been taken in this period of the global coronavirus pandemic, including an enhanced quarantine for the three cosmonauts to rule out any risk of importing Covid-19 onto the station.

"We have a very strict quarantine, almost since March for me," said Kathleen Rubins during the pre-launch press conference, adding that cosmonauts were tested very regularly.

This takeoff of a Russian rocket towards the ISS is the first since the successful launch of the American rocket SpaceX on May 30 from Kennedy Space Center (Florida), which ended a nine-year Russian monopoly on manned flights to the Station.

SpaceX's next flight to the ISS will take place next month: it will take three Americans and a Japanese to the station.

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