November 25, 2015

Interdepartmental Commission approved main and back-up crews of new ISS mission. The launch of Soyuz TMA-19M is scheduled for December 15 and will take place from Baikonur spaceport, – GCTC spokesman stated.

The main crew comprises Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra and European astronaut Timothy Peake (Great Britain). Their back-up colleagues are Roscosmos cosmonaut Anatoply Ivanishin, NASA woman-astronaut Kathleen Rubins and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi.

The crews are leaving for Baikonur on November 30.

For Malenchenko this flight will be the 6th one in space career, Timothy Kopra has been to space once, for Timothy Peake this flight is the first one. As for the back-up crew Anatoly Ivanishin will go to space for the second time and both Rubins and Onishi have no space flight experience.

Both crews have been passing long-duration preflight trainings in Russia, USA, Europe and Japan. New mission will conduct more than 50 scientific experiments in the field of medicine, ecology and astrophysics.

More from this category:
January 13, 2025

The creation of simulators that will train cosmonauts from Russia and friendly countries to work on the Russian orbital station will start this year. According…

full story
March 30, 2019

At the Baikonur cosmodrome preparational works continues for the launch of the “Progress MS-11” cargo spacecraft. Today, in accordance with the schedule, RSC “Energia” specialists…

full story
February 6, 2019

After passing the theoretical exams, the ISS crew started practical tests on simulators. The commander of the “Soyuz MS” spacecraft Alexey Ovchinin successfully passed the…

full story
September 16, 2019

Today, on September 16, 2019, in accordance with the training schedule the specialists of the RSC “Energia” (part of Roscosmos State Corporation) completed a series…

full story
November 20, 2018

Yesterday morning, on November 19, after the farewell ceremonial of the main and backup crews of the ISS-58/59 in Star City, the cosmonauts and astronauts…

full story
March 25, 2015

Several days later Russia’s Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft will be orbited by SoyuzFG booster. The ISS expedition 43/44 crew of  Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka an Mikhail Kornienko…

full story
May 27, 2013

According to press-service of Gagarin Cosmonaut Trainin Center, on May 26, 2013, following the launch preparation plan Soyuz space rocket was rolled out and installed…

full story
May 29, 2014

Soyuz-FG booster with Soyuz TMA-13M manned spacecraft carrying new ISS mission crew onboard was launched from “Gagarin” launching pad of Baikonur spaceport on May 28,…

full story