On Wednesday, May 30, the cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Alexey Leonov celebrates his birthday.

On May 29, 2018, as part of the prelaunch training program, the crews of “Soyuz MS-09” spacecraft conducted open training sessions attended by representatives of the media. Cosmonauts and astronauts of the main and backup crews Sergei Prokopiev, Oleg Kononenko, Alexander Gerst, Serena Aunon-Chancellor, Anne Macclein and David Saint-Jacques held training sessions at the multi-purpose stand for manual approach of the” Soyuz MS” spacecraft, training on the on-board documentation of the spacecraft , got training of the factors of space flight on special simulators and sports training.

On May 25 the delegation of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency led by JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa visited the Cosmonaut Training Center. Within the framework of the meeting with the head of GCTC, Hero of the Russian Federation, the honored test pilot of the Russian Federation Pavel Vlasov, further cooperation in the training of cosmonauts and astronauts in the crews was discussed. Hiroshi Yamakawa and Pavel Vlasov noted the need for full-fledged cooperation in the implementation of such a grandiose international project as the ISS.

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.