Hero of Soviet union, Hero of the Russian Federation USSR pilot and cosmonaut Valery Polyakov celebrated his Birthday yesterday, on April 27. Valery Polyakov set up the world’s record having performed the longest space flight in the history of mankind lasting for 437 days.

On April 26, 2015, according to the decision taken by State Commission rocket and space industry launching crews rolled-out Soyuz-2.1a booster with progress M-27M cargo vehicle to the launching pad #31 of Baikonur spaceport. The rocket was installed and the specialists started working in accordance with the first launching day schedule.

Roscosmos plans 10 launches from vostochny spaceport for 2025, - as stated in Russian Federal Space Program draft for 2016-2025.

Elena Serova became the first Russian woman working onboard the ISS and the fourth woman-cosmonaut in the history of Soviet and Russian Cosmonautics. Elena Serova started her first space flight on September 26, 2014 going to space as flight engineer onboard Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft together with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Samokutyayev and NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore.

Progress Rocket and Space Centre started assembling Soyuz-2.1a that is to be the first booster launched from new Russian spaceport Vostochny in Amur region. The booster will be ready for transportation to Vostochny in June, the works on the rocket are being accomplished according to the schedule, - Progress Rocket and Space Centre spokesman reports.

Space industry specialists go on working in accordance with the ISS flight schedule. On April 14, 2015 in the integration building of #254 launchpad RSC Energia specialists conducted final operations necessary to prepare Progress M-27M cargo vehicle for the filling with propellant components and pressurized gas: loaded cargoes, conducted mass calibration of the vehicle, docked it with the adapter module and placed the vehicle onto the transportation and installation unit that will transport it to the filling area.

On April 10, 2015, in the integration building of #31 launchpad Progress rocket and space Centre and Yuzhny space centre specialists started preparing Soyuz-2.1a booster for the launch of Progress M-27M cargo vehicle. First, second and third stages of the booster are already placed on the working place, the first stage is being prepared for pneumatic tests.

Today in accordance with pre-launch preparation plan Soyuz booster was roolleв out and installed on the launch pad #1 called Gagarinsky. The launch of this mission is scheduled at 10:42 p.m. Moscow time on March 27.

On March 14 ISS-42/44 mission main (Gennady Padalka, Roscosmos; Mikhail Korniyenko, Roscosmos; Scott Kelly, NASA) and back-up (Alexey Ovchinin, Roscosmos; Sergey Volkov, Roscosmos; Jeffrey Williams, NASA) crews left for Baikonur from Chkalovsky airfield onboard special charters. In several hours the aircrafts successfully landed at Krainiy airfield not far from Baikonur where the cosmonauts will pass their final preparation trainings before the flight.

Today on March 18 ISS-41/42 crew comprising Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyayev and Elena Serova and NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore successfully returned to the Earth onboard Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft after half a year space mission. Descent module landed 147 km to the southeast of Zhezkazgan town (Kazakhstan) at 05.14, Moscow time.