Soyuz TMA-10M commander Oleg Kotov of the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos, Expedition 37/38 flight engineer Sergey Ryazansky also of Roscosmos, and flight engineer Michael Hopkins of NASA are set to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday (Sept. 25) at 3:58 p.m. CDT (2058 GMT; 2:58 a.m. local time Sept. 26), from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov
They will dock their Soyuz to the station's Poisk module at 9:47 p.m. CDT (0247 GMT Sept. 26) following a four-orbit rendezvous.
About two hours later, the hatches between Soyuz TMA-10M and station will open and Kotov, Ryazansky and Hopkins will be greeted by ISS Expedition 37 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, flight engineer Karen Nyberg of NASA and flight engineer Luca Parmitano of ESA, who have been on board the orbiting laboratory since late May.
Kotov, Ryazansky and Hopkins will stay on the space station until mid-March. Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano will return to Earth on Nov. 11, leaving Kotov as Expedition 38 commander.
On Monday (Sept. 23), the Soyuz-FG rocket topped with the Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft was rolled out to the launch pad by train and erected into position.