Specialists of RSC “Energia” at the Baikonur cosmodrome successfully completed the operations for refueling the transport manned spacecraft “ Soyuz MS-09” with fuel components and compressed gases.

On May 21, 2018, on the territory of the test training complex (17th site) of the Baikonur complex, at the flag-raising ceremony of the countries, participating in the launch of the Soyuz MS-09 transport manned spacecraft, the final phase of preflight preparation of crews was officially launched .

The launch of the "Soyuz MS" spacecraft on the” Soyuz-2.1a” rocket is scheduled for August 2019. The flight of the ship will pass in unmanned mode, which will allow several times to increase the payload due to the lack of a part of the instruments and units, necessary to support the work of the crew.

Progress MS-08 cargo vehicle launched on the second try on February 13 from Baikonur successfully docked with the ISS in automatic mode.

On February 5, 2018, NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan and Christina Koch and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi were introduced to GCTC authorities and specialists and started training in GCTC on Soyuz MS simulator and Russian ISS segment simulator to be second flight engineers in the future space missions.

Progress MS-05 cargo vehicle, the first one after Progres MS-04 accident will deliver to the ISS apples, oranges, grapefruits, porridge (4 variants) and some sauces for cosmonauts, - Institute for Biomedical Problems specialist Alexander Agureyev said.

Progress MS-04 cargo vehicle launched to the ISS on December 01, 2016, at 17:51:52, Moscow time, burst at the altitude of 190 km above desolate mountain area in Tuva region. Most parts of the spacecraft burned in dense atmosphere.

Soyuz-U booster with new series cargo vehicle Soyuz MS-04 was rolled out from the integration building and erected on pad №1 (Gagarin launchpad).

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, Russian Space Agency Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskyi and the European Space Agency’s Thomas Pesquet are traveling to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft.

Baikonur launchsite saw traditional flag-raising ceremony taking place at the pad #17 in front of Cosmonaut hotel.