Today, on July 4, 2019, in the GCTC took place the farewell ceremony of of the main and backup crews of the ISS-60/61 , departing to the Baikonur cosmodrome to continue the pre-flight preparation.
The main crew includes cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, astronauts Luca Parmitano and Andrew Morgan, backup crew – cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov, astronauts Thomas Marshburne and Soichi Noguchi.
The morning of the crews began with a traditional breakfast with colleagues, relatives and friends, where words of farewell and support, good wishes and greetings were heard.
Among the members of the farewell were the management and staff of the GCTC, representatives of all space agencies, as well as families and friends of the crew members, going to Baikonur.
Before taking their seats in the bus, the crews had time to talk with the media.
Talking about the upcoming tasks onboard the ISS, Alexander Skvortsov reminded more than 50 planned experiments, spacewalks and a rich program of joint work with foreign colleagues.
After the press-talk with media, the bus with the crews went to the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow, from where they flew to Kazakhstan by two special airplanes to complete the final stage of the pre-launch preparation.
