Details of the Soyuz MS-25 visiting mission to the ISS which will carry the first Belarusian cosmonaut continue to emerge slowly, mostly through the Russian, rather than Belarusian, media.
The short-term Visiting Mission-21 will be launched on 21st March 2024 and will be commanded by veteran Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, and will also deliver NASA astronaut Tracey Caldwell-Dyson who will join ISS Expeditions 70/71 for a six month stay. The third seat will be occupied by the woman selected to be the first Belarusian in space, Marina Vasilevskaya, 33, a former flight attendant-instructor with the national airline ‘Belavia’.
The Belarusian side apparently asked that Novitsky command the flight as he was born in what is now Belarus, although he has always held Soviet, and later Russian, nationality.
Novitsky and Vasilevskaya will stay on the ISS for twelve days, before returning with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, who arrived in September 2023, onboard Soyuz MS-24. Soyuz MS-25 will be the first Russian (or Soviet) spaceflight to launch with two women on board, although, ironically, neither will be Russian. However, the returning MS-24 won’t be, as that distinction is held by Soyuz TMA-11, in 2008. Neither of the women onboard that landing, Peggy Whitson (NASA) and Soyeon Yi (South Korea), were Russian either!
The idea of a flight of a Belarusian cosmonaut, to the ISS, was first put forward, in December 2021, by Dmitri Rogozin, then the Head of Roskosmos. At that time Rogozin said that he would ask Belarus to select a ‘girl’, as such a selection would ‘brighten up the Cosmonaut Training Centre’!
In April 2022, the Russian and Belarusian leaders, Putin and Lukashenko, issued a statement confirming that they had agreed to the flight of Belarusian cosmonaut in 2023 or 2024, as a "symbol of friendship between Russia and Belarus".
Little was heard for many months, but on Christmas Eve 2022, six women, aged 25 to 32, arrived at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre (GCTC ) for medical and psychological assessment. They comprised two doctors, two scientific researchers and two flight attendants with ‘Belavia’. Information on how these six were selected is very sparse, although in was reported that there was an earlier short-list of nineteen men and ten women. The men were later excluded, to comply with Rogozin’s earlier diktat, even though he had been removed from his post in July 2022. Why flight attendants had even been eligible to apply, or be considered, is unclear, but more about that later.
Lukashenko was present at the GCTC, and one of the women, Marina Vasilevskaya, was required to do an 8-G centrifuge run, for his amusement. Later, Lukashenko was photographed next to the eventual prime and back-up candidates. Given his subsequent interest in the project, and style of leadership, it is highly that Lukashenko made the final selections himself, there and then, and that Vasilevskaya had secured the prime seat by either volunteering, or agreeing, to that centrifuge ride.
The Belarus Academy of Sciences initially said that Vasilevskaya would conduct a programme of twelve scientific experiments without giving any details, but subsequent statements reduced this number to nine, and then, in early February 2024, to just seven. Curiously, there is no mention of any of this on the Academy of Sciences website, which suggests that the mission and its objectives may have been taken over by the Lukashenko's office.
Although Marina Vasilevskaya, and her back-up, Dr Anastasia Lenkova, arrived at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in July 2023, eight months before the planned launch, they followed accelerated the three-month training schedule designed for the movie-makers who participated in the Soyuz MS-19 flight in 2021. 
Unlike the movie crews, the duo completed their training with their Russian commanders as two person teams, with the Belarusians taking the flight engineer one seats. The two NASA astronauts being ferried to join ISS Expeditions 70/71, joined the training flow in February 2024.
In early November 2023, in an interview with Belarusian media, veteran cosmonaut Valery Tokarev said that Vasilevskaya was ‘psychologically and physically ready to fly’ which suggests that the remaining months before the launch would be spent on preparing the experimental programme.
It is notable that the Belarusian media refers to the two women as 'cosmonauts', whilst the Russian media calls them 'spaceflight participants.'
There is obviously a huge political and propaganda element to the flight, and its timing, given Belarus’ close collaboration with Russia during its war on Ukraine, even though the mission was initiated before February 2022. This has already manifested itself in the two cosmonauts’ first official task, which was to accept a flag from the Belarusian Olympic Committee, which is to be taken to the ISS as part of their personal baggage allowance. Belarus is currently banned (alongside Russia) from entering a team in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. The Olympic Committee is presided over by Alexander Lukashenko's son, Viktor.
The lack of broader information about the flight has even attracted comment from Oleg Novitsky's wife, Yulia, who is a Russian journalist. She expressed surprise when describing the training and preparations as being conducted in 'the strictest secrecy'.
During a meeting with Lukashenko in January 2024, on their last visit to friends and family before the flight, the dictator asked, ‘Have you changed your minds about going into space?’ But both women confirmed that they were ready, and that the spaceflight would definitely take place, as planned. He then presented them with flowers and watches.
Independent Belarusian media, mostly based in Poland, have reported the preparations for the planned flight in a more jocular style, giving very few details, and under headlines such as 'Belavia stewardess will go into space on March 21st' .
With just over four weeks to go until the launch, we'd expect a more regular flow ot information to appear and we will update this blog, as it happens.
We are currently working on profiles and backstories for the two Belarusian women, Marina Vasilevskaya and Anastasia Lenkova, and details of their training and their thoughts about the flight, and we'll publish these, through here, in the coming days.
Words - Tony Quine January 2024 (Updated February 2024)
Photos - GCTC Press Office/NASA
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