the State Commission for flight tests of manned space complexes under the chairmanship of Director General of state Corporation “Rosatom” Dmitry Rogozin has approved the composition of the primary and backup crews of manned spacecraft “Soyuz MS-16”. In addition, it confirmed the readiness of the carrier rocket “Soyuz-2.1 a” and the ground infrastructure for launch on the International space station program.
the Russian space Agency: “Soyuz-2.1 a” is waiting for its first flight with the crew
the crew: cosmonauts, “Roscosmos” Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Wagner, NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy. Doublers – cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov and Andrey Babkin, astronaut Steven Bowen. In addition, the Commission confirmed the readiness of the carrier rocket “Soyuz-2.1 a” and the ground infrastructure for launch under the ISS program.
Expert: a Request to the US leadership with the ambition of expansion in space is not a harmless
the Launch is scheduled for April 9 at 11:05 Moscow time from the Baikonur cosmodrome. All the preparations for the fashion industry – in conditions of high security. Crews almost completely isolated from the others. Will be broken and one of the traditions: when the astronauts escorted relatives and friends. Will not and journalists.
This will be the first launch of the rocket “Soyuz 2.1 a” to be sent to space crew. Previously, the reliability of the media was tested by launching cargo ships, and last summer the launch took place with the ship “Union”, but without crew on Board.
the Feature of this booster is that it consists entirely of Russian components. “Soyuz-2.1 a” was replaced by “Union-FG”, which was used by the Ukrainian control system.
