Soyuz MS-24 Spacecraft With Russian-US Crew Of 3 To Fly To ISS On September 15 - Roscosmos

The next Russian manned spacecraft, Soyuz MS-24, will depart with a crew to the International Space Station (ISS) on September 15, Roscosmos told reporters on Friday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th March, 2023) The next Russian manned spacecraft, Soyuz MS-24, will depart with a crew to the International Space Station (ISS) on September 15, Roscosmos told reporters on Friday.

"The Soyuz MS-24 manned spacecraft with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara should fly to the station on September 15. Landing of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft with Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin and Francisco Rubio is scheduled for September 27," the Russian state corporation said.

The decision on the flight was made at a meeting of the state commission on Friday. The issue of an updated flight program for the Russian segment of the ISS in 2023 was considered at it.

In addition, the launches of Progress MS-23 and Progress MS-24 cargo spacecraft are expected on May 24 and August 23, Roscosmos said.

On April 6, cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev will manually dock the Soyuz MS-23 manned spacecraft from the Poisk small research module to the Prichal hub module.

Together with Prokopyev, members of his crew, Roscosmos cosmonaut Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio, will be in the spacecraft during the move.

The re-docking of the Soyuz MS-23, as Roscosmos explained, is needed to ensure the safety of spacewalks under the Russian program from the Poisk module.

Initially, the flight of Kononenko, Chub and O'Hara was planned for March 16, 2023, on the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft. However, their spacecraft had to be sent earlier in an unmanned mode, so that it would replace the Soyuz MS-22 with a faulty cooling system of the previous crew on the ISS. Now, the seats from Soyuz MS-22 have been transferred and installed in Soyuz MS-23. It was reported that the return of the Soyuz MS-23 would take place on September 27, and the flight of the Soyuz MS-24 was also postponed to September.