Three residents of the International Space Station will take a spin around their orbital neighborhood in the Soyuz MS-17 on Friday, March 19, relocating the spacecraft to prepare for the arrival of the next set of crew members. Live coverage on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency's website will begin at 12:15 p.m. EDT.
Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA and Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, both of the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos, will undock from the Earth-facing port of the station's Rassvet module at 12:38 p.m. and dock again at the space-facing Poisk docking port at 1:07 p.m.
The relocation will free up the Rassvet port for the docking of another Soyuz vehicle, designated Soyuz MS-18, which will carry three Expedition 65 crew members to the station next month. NASA's Mark Vande Hei and Roscosmos' Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov are scheduled to launch to the station Friday, April 9, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
This will be the 15th overall Soyuz port relocation and the first since August 2019.
Rubins, Ryzhikov, and Kud-Sverchkov will return to Earth April 17 in the Soyuz MS-17 that carried them to the space station in October 2020.
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Roscosmos, NASA in contradiction over next ISS Commander
Moscow (Sputnik) Mar 12, 2021
NASA and Roscosmos diverged on information concerning the next commander of the International Space Station. NASA's press office told Sputnik that after Soyuz MS-17 dispatches from the ISS on 17 April with Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins on board, Walker will become the 65th expedition commander. When she leaves the station on the board of the Crew Dragon spaceship in late April, Japan's Akihiko Hoshide, arriving in the ISS on 23 April, will assume commander responsibilities. However, acc ... read more