From the Baikonur cosmodrome launched spacecraft “Soyuz MS-06” with the new ISS crew
The BAIKONUR COSMODROME (Kazakhstan), September 13 — RIA Novosti. The carrier rocket “Soyuz-FG” with manned spacecraft “Soyuz MS-06” and a new crew to work on the International space station (ISS) was launched from Baikonur, RIA news from the “Gagarin’s start”.
As part of the main crew of ISS-53/54 Alexander Misurkin (spacecraft commander, Roscosmos) and astronaut mark Vande Hai and Joseph acaba (flight engineer, NASA). On the ISS the new expedition participants expect Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy, American Randolph Breznik and Italian Paolo Nespoli. Docking with the ISS is scheduled at 05.57 MSK in automatic mode.
The zero-gravity indicator and talisman of the new expedition was a small model of the first artificial Earth satellite (AES). Sixty years since the launch of the USSR the world’s first artificial satellite PS-1 (the Simplest satellite-1) will be widely celebrated on 4 October 2017.
Until the end of the year spacewalks by the Russian program from the ISS will not be the first extra-vehicular activity (EVA) scheduled for January 2018.
Previously, Roskosmos reported that from April 2017 and prior to the introduction into the Russian segment of the station for a new multipurpose laboratory module (MLM) “Nauka”, the Russian crew of the ISS will be reduced from three to two. The decision was made to increase the efficiency of the ISS Russian segment, taking into account proposals of the parent organization for manned space complexes “RSC “Energia”.