Roscosmos approved main and back-up crew of Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft to be launched to the ISS from Baikonur in September 2015. The main crew comprises Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Volkov (Soyuz TMA-18M crew commander), ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen (flight engineer) and KazKosmos cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov.

Today, on July 16, 2015, Roscosmos Mission Control Centre and Near-Earth Space Monitoring Services of Russia and USA found out that there is possibility of space debris approaching the ISS.

On June 15, 2015, Baikonur saw “Mass Media day” taking place in GCTC test and training center of #17 launchpad. Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft main (Oleg Kononenko, Kimiya Yui and Kjell Lindgren) and back-up (Yuri Malenchenko, Timothy Kopra, Timohy Peake) crews arranged open training for mass media representative.

Kazakh astronaut Aidyn Aimbetov successfully passed all exams to fly to the ISS in September 2015, - Kazakh President press-service reports.

On July 8, 2015, in GCTC Interdepartmental Commission approved next ISS crew to go to the station onboard Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft.

GCTC saw official presentation of ISS-51/52 mission program. The crew comprises Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexander Misurkin and Nicolay Tikhonov and NASA astronaut Mark T. Vande Hai.

Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov was approved for September flight to the ISS.

On July 3, 2015, at 07.55, Moscow time, Russian aerospace industry launching crews successfully launched Soyuz-U booster with progress M-28M cargo vehicle from #1 launchpad of Baikonur spaceport.

On July 1, 2015, in accordance with the decision taken by State Commission launching crews rolled-out Soyuz-U booster with Progress M-28M cargo vehicle from integration building to the launching pad #1 (Gagarin launch). The rocket was installed and specialists started working according to the first launch day schedule.

Stock of food and water stored onboard the ISS will enable the crew to wait for the next Progress M-28M cargo vehicle arriving on July 5, - Russian ISS segment flight director Vladimir Solovyov said.