astronomy

Soyuz MS-20

Soyuz MS-20 is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Soyuz MS-20 rather than just read about it. In short: Soyuz MS-20 was a Russian Soyuz spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS) on 8–20 December 2021. Unlike previous Soyuz flights to the ISS, Soyuz MS-20 did not deliver any crew members for an ISS Expedition or serve as a lifeboat for any crew members on board the station.

Key takeaways

Soyuz MS-20 belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Soyuz MS-20 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Soyuz MS-20 from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Soyuz MS-20 was a Russian Soyuz spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS) on 8–20 December 2021. Unlike previous Soyuz flights to the ISS, Soyuz MS-20 did not deliver any crew members for an ISS Expedition or serve as a lifeboat for any crew members on board the station. Instead, it was commanded by a single professional cosmonaut. It carried two space tourists represented by company Space Adventures, which had executed eight space tourism missions to the ISS between 2001 and 2009. The flight to reach the ISS took six hours.

Crew Alexander Misurkin, a veteran of two long-duration missions to the ISS, commanded the Soyuz, which was modified to allow it to be flown by a sole cosmonaut.

Backup crew

Space tourists For some time, it was speculated that Austrian airline pilot Johanna Maislinger would be one of the tourists, but on 13 May 2021, Space Adventures confirmed that Japanese billionaire, art collector and space enthusiast Yusaku Maezawa had acquired both seats, the other for his production assistant Yozo Hirano. This was the first time two Japanese launched to space together. In July 2021, Space Adventures Moscow Office changed their previous story and said that Maislinger had never had access to the funds she had claimed, and they had never treated her as a serious candidate. It was also reported in April 2021 that Japanese entertainer Yumi Matsutoya was to fly on Soyuz MS-20 with Maislinger.

Notes Soyuz MS-20 marks the first tourist flight to the ISS after more than 12 years since Canadian Guy Laliberté onboard Soyuz TMA-16 in September 2009. British singer Sarah Brightman was to fly Soyuz TMA-18M in September 2015, but she cancelled in May 2015. Soyuz MS-20 was also reported in April 2020 as the first of at least two completely commercial Soyuz flights by Roscosmos, to be followed by Soyuz MS-23 in October 2022 carrying one cosmonaut and two passengers, possibly from United Arab Emirates, to the ISS for six months. However, this was changed to a standard Russian-American Expedition 68 launch even during 2021; and after the events of 2022 culminated in December with a micrometeorite puncturing the Soyuz MS-22 cooling system, Soyuz MS-23 was launched on 24 February 2023 empty to replace it. Soyuz MS-20 also marks a departure from the way space tourism was done in the 2000s. Previous missions took one tourist during either a taxi flight, where Soyuz lifeboats on the ISS were swapped, allowing for about a week-long stay or handover periods between crews, where the tourist would launch with an incoming long-duration crew and land with the outgoing one. Soyuz MS-20 switched to a flight entirely dedicated to two space tourists. Soon afterward, American company Axiom Space carried out a similar flight with SpaceX, where an Axiom-hired professional astronaut flew with three paying tourists to the ISS on board Crew Dragon Endeavour, on 8–25 April 2022.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Soyuz MS-20

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Soyuz MS-20 claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Soyuz MS-20 before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Soyuz MS-20 ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Soyuz MS-20

In research: Soyuz MS-20 appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Soyuz MS-20 in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Soyuz MS-20 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2021 in Russia, Crewed Soyuz missions, Fully civilian crewed orbital spaceflights, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Soyuz MS-20 outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Soyuz MS-20 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Soyuz MS-20 means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Soyuz MS-20 out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Soyuz MS-20 in simple terms?

Why does Soyuz MS-20 matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Soyuz MS-20?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Soyuz MS-20.