Soyuz MS-01 commander Anatoli Ivanishin of Roscosmos, along with flight engineers Kate Rubins of NASA and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are set to launch to the International Space Station on Wednesday (July 6) at 8:36 p.m. CDT (0136 GMT or 7:36 a.m. local time July 7) from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Credit: NASA/Alexander Vysotsky
The trio will travel in an upgraded Soyuz spacecraft, testing modified systems for two days — and 34 Earth orbits — before docking to the space station's Rassvet module on Friday (July 8) at 11:12 p.m. CDT (0412 GMT July 9).
About two hours later, the hatches between Soyuz MS-01 and the station will open and Ivanishin, Rubins and Onishi will be greeted by ISS Expedition 48 commander Jeff Williams and flight engineers Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin.
Ivanishin, Rubins and Onishi will stay on the space station through October.
On Monday (July 4), the Soyuz-FG rocket topped with the MS-01 spacecraft was rolled out to the launch pad by train and erected into position.