Bishop Ignatius of Aktobe and Kyzylorda held a prayer service at the test training complex of the Research Institute of the Cosmonaut Training Center named after Yuri Gagarin in Baikonur

September 11, 2024. Baikonur. Bishop Ignatius of Aktobe and Kyzylorda held a prayer service "before the beginning of any good deed" for God's help in a manned flight into space.

The service took place at the test training complex of the Research Institute of the Cosmonaut Training Center named after Yuri Gagarin.

The following prayed at the service: Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin, Ivan Wagner and American NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, Roscosmos leaders and employees of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The priest was joined by the clergy of the diocese and employees of the Aktobe diocesan administration.

The crew of the Burlak (call sign of the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft commander) will spend more than 200 days at the station and return to Earth in the spring of 2025.

The launch of the Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle took place on September 11 at 21:23 Astana time.

The goal of the mission, which took off on September 11, is to deliver astronauts to the station, who will spend about a year there, and cargo weighing approximately 130 kg. Among them are equipment for recording photo and video footage, various data storage devices, consumables, food, and equipment for experiments. This is part of long-term expeditions to the ISS, which also involve the team going into outer space and conducting scientific and applied research.