Baikonur saw official flag-raising ceremony. Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrei Borisenko raised the flag of Russia, Alexander Misurkin and Nickolay Tikhonov – the flag of Kazakhstan, NASA astronauts Robert Shane Kimbrough and Mark Vande Hei – the flag of USA.

On Wednesday, August 24, prime crew of Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft comprising crew commander Sergey Ryzhikov (Roscosmos) and flight engineers Andrei Borisenko (Roscosmos) and Robert Shane Kimbrough (NASA) passed typical flight day training in GCTC.

Roscosmos state corporation is going to spend about 1,8 billion rubles to enhance Soyuz manned spacecraft and Progress cargo vehicle launches reliability.

Roscosmos started developing new super-heavy booster, - mass media representatives reported with reference to RSC Energia Director General Vladimir Solntsev.

Prime (Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrei Borisenko, NASA astronaut Robert Shane Kimbrough) and back-up (Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexander Misurkin and Nickolay Tikhonov, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hai) crews of ISS-49/50 mission are finishing their exams in GCTC.

Roscosmos and NASA Advisory board joint commission started working to determine future work streams of ISS project, - Roscosmos press office reported.

On July 25, 1984, Soviet woman-cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya performed her spacewalk spending 3 hours 35 minutes in the open space. She became the first woman performing EVA.

Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov, Ivan Wagner, Sergey Ryazansky, Oleg Artemyev, Sergey Prokopiev, Alexander Samokutyayev, NASA astronauts Scott Teangle, Randolph Bresnik, Andrew Feustel, Janet Epps, ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst and JAXA astronaut Norishige Kanai preparing to go to space in 2017 and 2018 passed water survival trainings in GCTC.

Soyuz-U booster with Progress MS-03 cargo vehicle installed on the launchpad of Baikonur spaceport, Roscosmos spokesman reported.

New Soyuz MS was launched from Baikonur launchsite on July 07, 07.36, local time. After successful docking on July 09, Anatoly Ivanishin (Roscosmos), Kathleen Rubins (NASA) and Takuya Onishi (JAXA) joined Oleg Skripochka (Roscosmos), Alexei Ovchinin (Roscosmos) and Jeffrey Williams (NASA) onboard the ISS.