No decision to postpone Soyuz spacecraft launch to ISS

"No decision to postpone the launch has been taken. The time of the vertical adjustment of the space mission vehicle will be determined at the meeting of the technical management at 14.00 Moscow Time," Roscosmos said.

A source in the aerospace industry earlier told TASS that the installation of the Soyuz-FG carrier rocket at the launch site had been postponed because of strong wind.

The Soyuz TMA-20M manned spacecraft is to bring the International Space Station (ISS) a new crew, which comprises Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams. The backup crew includes Russians Sergei Ryzhikov and Andrei Borisenko and U.S. astronaut Robert Kimbrough.

The manned spacecraft is to be launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome (Kazakhstan) on March 19 at 00.26 Moscow Time. The docking with the ISS should take pace about six hours after the launch - at 06.12 Moscow Time.

Kazinform refers to TASS