The crew of the Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft is ready for its half-year mission on the International Space Station (ISS), the flight commander said on Tuesday at the Baikonur Space Station.
“We are all ready to work on the program and certain of our own strength,” Fyodor Yurchihin said.
The launch is scheduled for 21:35 GMT on Tuesday (01:35 Wednesday Moscow time).
Aside from Yurchihin, the new ISS crew members are U.S. astronauts Douglas Wheelock and Shannon Walker.
They will join Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Korniyenko, and U.S. astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson, who currently man the station.
The ISS orbit was raised by 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) on June 8 to ensure the best conditions for the docking of the Soyuz TMA-19.
The TMA-19 mission will be the 106th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft since the start of the program in 1967.
The Soyuz spacecraft will most likely remain docked to the space station for the remainder of Expedition 24 to serve as an emergency escape vehicle.
BAIKONUR SPACE CENTER, June 15 (RIA Novosti)
