Better late than never...

[GordonD]

...in more ways than one. This went completely unreported in the news, which is why I didn't pick up on it at the time.

 

Last Thursday, 14 March, Soyuz MS-12 was launched from Baikonur and docked with the ISS a few hours later, early on the Friday morning (Universal Time). The crew consisted of Aleksei Ovchinin and Nick Hague, who failed to reach the ISS when their MS-10 mission aborted in October, but who have now got there at last. The third crewmember is US astronaut Christina Koch. This has restored the ISS residency to its normal six people.

 

The arrival of MS-12 marks the official start of Expedition 59. Normally this changeover happens when the previous crew departs but because the flight schedule was thrown into disarray by the launch abort, this brings things back into line.

 

According to the original flight schedule, MS-12 should have carried UAE cosmonaut Hazza Al Mansouri, who would then have returned after a week or ten days with Ovchinin and Hague aboard MS-10.