posted 03-17-2016 01:30 AM               

Station-bound cosmonaut first to bookend spacecraft missions

A Russian cosmonaut launching to the International Space Station will set a new first by flying on the last spacecraft of its type.

Oleg Skripochka will lift off Friday (March 18) at 5:26 p.m. EDT (2126 GMT) on board Russia's Soyuz TMA-20M from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Joining him on board the vehicle for the six-hour flight to the space station will be his fellow Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Jeff Williams.

But it will only be Skripochka who sets the new first, as a result of this being his second spaceflight.

A veteran of the Soyuz TMA-01M mission to the station in 2010, Skripochka will become the first person in history to fly on both the maiden and final flights of a spacecraft.