Russia postpones next manned space flight to ISS

13:18, 16 September 2011

MOSCOW. September 16. KAZINFORM The Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, has rescheduled the launch of its next manned mission to the International Space Station (ISS) so that new crewmembers will take off for the station on November 14, the agency's head, Vladimir Popovkin, said on Friday.

One more manned space flight to the ISS has been postponed from December 20 to December 21, Popovkin added.

Three crewmembers of the ISS, Andrei Borisenko, Alexander Samokutyayev and Ron Garan returned to Earth safely on Friday morning. The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft carrying ISS crewmembers landed at a designated area in Kazakhstan approximately at 08:00 a.m. Moscow time (04:00 GMT),RIA Novosti reported.

The return was originally set for September 8, but the failed launch of a Progress space freighter on August 24 forced the rescheduling.

The three crewmembers remaining on board the ISS - Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, NASA astronaut Michael Fossum and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa - are scheduled to return to Earth on November 22.

To read more see www.en.rian.ru

Diplomacy Education and Science Government