Three astronauts are launching to space tomorrow after lengthy quarantine

In the wee hours of the morning on April 9th, three astronauts are set to launch on a Russian Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan and journey to the International Space Station, where they’ll join three crew members already living and working in orbit. Because this flight is launching during a pandemic, tighter restrictions and protocols are in place to prevent the novel coronavirus from making its way to space.

The three people headed to orbit tomorrow include NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. Ivanishin and Vagner are last-minute replacements to the flight after one of the original cosmonauts assigned to the mission suffered an eye injury. For Cassidy and Ivanishin, this will be their third...

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