MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The redocking of the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft at the International Space Station (ISS) will be conducted manually on Friday in order to free up the Poisk docking module for the arrival of the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft, the Russian Mission Control informs.
Soyuz TMA-16M will be docked to the Zvezda Service Module, which is part of the Russian Orbital Segment of the ISS, just like Poisk, at around 10:30 Moscow time (07:30 GMT), according to the Mission Control.
Soyuz TMA-16M arrived at the ISS on March 27, bringing Russian cosmonauts Commander Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko, and NASA’s Scott Kelly to the space station. The three comprise the main ISS Expedition 44 crew.
In July, a Soyuz spacecraft brought a backup crew of Russia’s Oleg Kononenko, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and NASA’s Kjell Lindgren to the ISS.
The ISS program is a joint project among five participating space agencies: the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Russia’s Roscosmos, the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
