On July 8, 2015, in GCTC Interdepartmental Commission approved next ISS crew to go to the station onboard Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft.
The main crew comprises Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko (crew commander), JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui (1st flight engineer) and NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren (2nd flight engineer).
The back-up crew includes Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, American astronaut Timothy Kopra and British astronaut Timothy Peake.
On Friday, July 10, the cosmonauts leave for Baikonur spaceport where they are going to pass final preflight trainings.
The launch of Soyuz-FG booster wuh TMA-17M manned spacecraft is scheduled for July 23, 00.03, Moscow time.
For Oleg Kononenko it will be the third flight. Total duration of his previous flights amounts to 391 days. JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui and NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren will perform the first flight in their space career.

RIA Novosti – Fragments of Russia’s Progress M-18M space freighter sunk safely in the Pacific Ocean after re-entering the atmosphere on Friday, a spokesman for…
On Monday, March 16, 2020 the “Soyuz-2.1b” launch vehicle with the Glonass-M navigation spacecraft was launched from the launch pad №4 of the Plesetsk cosmodrome…
In the course of a space flight the crew may face various off-nominal situations either onboard the spacecraft or the station and has to be…
The first after December accident Progress cargo vehicle was successfully launched from Baikonur spaceport, – Mission Control Centre representative reported. Progress MS-05 will deliver to…
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…
The first Proton-M booster launched after spring accident may orbit Russian Express telecommunication satellite, – Roscosmos Head Igor Komarov told the journalists. “Late this week…
A monument to Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, was opened in the capital of Cyprus, Nicosia ITAR-TASS informs. “The opening of the monument…
Angara-1.2PP booster will be rolled-out to the launchpad of Plesetsk spaceport (Arkhangelsk region) today, on June 25. The decision was taken by State Commission meeting…