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MOSCOW, March 24 The next Russian manned spacecraft Soyuz MS-24 will depart with a crew to the International Space Station on September 15, the Roscosmos press service told reporters on Friday .
«The Soyuz MS-24 manned spacecraft with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara should fly to the station on September 15. Landing of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft with Sergei Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin and Francisco Rubio are scheduled for September 27.
It is noted that such a decision was made at a meeting of the state commission on Friday. The issue of an updated flight program for the Russian segment of the ISS in 2023 was considered.
Besides, on May 24 and August 23, Progress MS-23 and Progress MS-24 cargo ships are expected to be launched.
On April 6, cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev will manually dock the Soyuz MS-23 manned spacecraft from the Poisk small research module to the Prichal hub module. Together with Prokopyev, members of his crew, Roscosmos cosmonaut Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio, will be in the ship during the move.
The re-docking of the Soyuz MS-23, as Roscosmos explained, is needed to ensure the safety of spacewalks under the Russian program from the Poisk module.
Initially, the flight of the crew of Kononenko, Chub and O'Hara was planned for March 16, 2023 on the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft. However, their ship had to be sent earlier in an unmanned mode, so that it would replace the Soyuz MS-22 with a faulty cooling system of the previous crew on the ISS. Now the seats from Soyuz MS-22 have been transferred and installed in Soyuz MS-23. It was reported that the return of the Soyuz MS-23 would take place on September 27, and the flight of the Soyuz MS-24 was also postponed to September.
Earlier, the Izvestia newspaper, citing three sources in the industry, reported that the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft could go to the ISS three months ahead of schedule — June 7 instead of September 15, in order to speed up return the Soyuz MS-23 crew to Earth. Roscosmos later announced that the Soyuz MS-24 launch to the ISS was scheduled for the second half of 2023.
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