Soyuz TMA-13M commander Maxim Surayev of Roscosmos, flight engineer Reid Wiseman of NASA and flight engineer Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency are set to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday (May 28) at 2:57 p.m. CDT (1957 GMT; 1:57 a.m. local time May 29), from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov
They will dock their Soyuz to the station's Rassvet module at 8:48 p.m. CDT (0148 GMT May 29) following a four-orbit rendezvous.
About two hours later, the hatches between Soyuz TMA-13M and the station will open and Surayev, Wiseman and Gerst will be greeted by ISS Expedition 40 commander Steven Swanson of NASA and flight engineers Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos, who have been on board the orbiting laboratory since late March.
Surayev, Wiseman and Gerst will stay on the space station through mid-November. Skvortsov, Artemyev and Swanson will return to Earth on Sept. 11, leaving Suraev as Expedition 41 commander.
On Monday (May 26), the Soyuz-FG rocket topped with the Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft was rolled out to the launch pad by train and erected into position.