Soyuz TMA-12M commander Alexander Skvortsov of Roscosmos, Expedition 39/40 flight engineer Oleg Artemyev also of Roscosmos, and flight engineer Steve Swanson of NASA are set to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday (March 25) at 4:17 p.m. CDT (2117 GMT; 3:17 a.m. local time March 26), from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov
They will dock their Soyuz to the station's Poisk module at 10:04 p.m. CDT (0304 GMT March 26) following a four-orbit rendezvous.
About two hours later, the hatches between Soyuz TMA-12M and the space station will open and Skvortsov, Artemyev and Swanson will be greeted by ISS Expedition 39 commander Koichi Wakata of JAXA, flight engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, who have been on board the orbiting laboratory since early November.
Skvortsov, Artemyev and Swanson will stay on the station through mid-September. Wakata, Mastracchio and Tyurin will return to Earth on May 14, leaving Swanson as Expedition 40 commander.
On Sunday (March 23), the Soyuz-FG rocket topped with the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft was rolled out to the launch pad by train and erected into position.