The launch of the manned spaceship Soyuz TMA-20 with the next International Space Station (ISS) crew will be postponed from December 13 to December 15, the head of the Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said on Friday.
The launch date was postponed because the Soyuz TMA-20 descent vehicle was damaged while being transported to the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan. Specialists from the state-controlled company RKK Energia managed to replace the damaged capsule in two days.
"We have done practically all the main [repair]; we had to return part of the spacecraft to RKK Energia and bring the backup copy of the descent vehicle to Baikonur," Anatoly Perminov said.
The Soyuz TMA-20 will deliver Dmitry Kondratyev, Catherine Coleman and Paolo Nespoli to the ISS from Baikonur.
The Russian Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft with three crew members on board successfully landed in Kazakhstan in late September.
KOROLYOV, October 22 (RIA Novosti)
