posted 08-11-2016 08:13 AM               

"Plans to reduce the crew stem from the fact that less cargo ships are sent to the ISS and from the necessity to boost the efficiency of the program," the newspaper quotes Krikalev.

Apart from that, it will make it possible to lower expenses on the space station’s maintenance.

...Krikalev said this issue will be discussed with the Mission Control Center, the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems and ISS partners.

posted 09-14-2016 01:34 PM               

"In case the endorsed schedule is observed and the MLM gets into operation in December 2017, the curtailment will affect only one Russian crew," the source said. "Otherwise the practice of curtailment will continue until the commissioning of the module."

...as part of the crew cuttailment plan, Roscomos may swap the crews due to go into space in March and in May.

In March 2017, the Soyuz MS-04 ship is due to take to the ISS the cosmonaus Alexander Misurkin and Nikolai Tikhonov and NASA astronaut Mark Thomas Vande Hei, while the cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, NASA astronaut Jack David Fischer and the European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli of Italy are supposed to head for the ISS in May.

The source told TASS Vande Hei is professional upgrading to Level 1 from 2 Flight Engineer. Should the third place on the Soyuz become vacant, the procedure for replacement of the crews may change and a young Russian cosmonaut may go into space with a visiting crew for a period of several days.

posted 09-26-2016 11:27 AM               

First Russian two-member ISS crew in March 2017 to be accompanied by cargo; no tourists or foreign astronauts to hitchhike!

Only one "tourist" seat might be available on Soyuz heading to ISS until 2018.