State panel to confirm make-up of next ISS crew Mon

08:21, 27 May 2013

BAIKONUR. May 27. KAZINFORM The State Commission is to pass a final verdict here on Monday on the composition of an international crew of next long-duration expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), who will set out on a journey to orbit on May 29.

"If nothing unforeseen happens, a Soyuz TMA-09M spaceship will carry Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, and American astronaut Karen Nyberg on Wednesday," a Commission member has informed. .

Earlier, the inter-agency commission judged the results of the qualification examination of the prime crew as excellent. Backup pilots -- Mikhail Tyurin, Richard Mastracchio, and Koichi Wakata also demonstrated fine skills of operating the mockups of the Russian segment of the ISS and the TMA-M spaceship.

According to Itar-Tass, following the termination of the flights of US space shuttles in 2011, the Russian spaceship Soyuz remains the only means to deliver crews to the ISS, a Federal Space Agency official recalled.

The launch of the Soyuz TMA-09M is scheduled for 00:32, Moscow time, on May 29. The orbital mission of the ISS-36/37 crew will last more than four months.

Space exploration Baikonur