Soyuz MS-17 prime and back-up crews successfully passed exams in GCTC, – press-office representative reported.
“Both prime comprising Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins and back-up crew including Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Bovitsky and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hai successfully passed two-weeks long examination session getting an “excellent” mark”, – the source stated.
He mentioned that on Tuesday the prime crew passed final exam on Soyuz spacecraft simulator while the back-up one on ISS simulator and on Wednesday switched places.
On Thursday the joint GCTC commission will analyze the results and approve the crew for the flight.
Soyuz MS-17 will be launched with the help of Soyuz-2.1a booster from Baikonur launchsite on October 14. According to NASA the spacecraft is to set up a new world record delivering crew to space in just 3 hours and 5 minutes.