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.
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