Soyuz MS-06 commander Alexander Misurkin of Roscosmos, along with flight engineers Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba of NASA, are set to launch to the International Space Station on Tuesday (Sept. 12) at 4:17 p.m. CDT (2117 GMT or 3:17 a.m. Sept. 13 local time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
They will dock the Soyuz to the space station's Poisk module at 9:57 p.m CDT (0257 GMT), following a four-orbit rendezvous.
About two hours later, the hatches between the Soyuz and space station will open and Misurkin, Vande Hei and Acaba will be greeted by Expedition 53 commander Randy Bresnik of NASA with Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency (ESA), both flight engineers.
Misurkin, Vande Hei and Acaba will stay onboard the station through February.
On Sunday (Sept. 10), the Soyuz-FG rocket topped with the Soyuz MS-06 spacecraft was rolled out to the pad by train and erected into position.