Soyuz Crew Ship Prepares to Move to New Station Port

Two Russian spacecraft are seen docked to the International Space Station as it orbited 269 miles above southern Argentina. At left is the Soyuz MS-17 crew ship that will soon undock from the Rassvet module and relocate to the Poisk module, making room for three new crew members due to launch April 9 aboard the Soyuz MS-18 crew ship. At right is the aft end of the Progress 77 cargo craft docked to the Pirs docking compartment. Credits: NASA
(From left) The Soyuz MS-17 crew ship and the Progress 77 cargo craft are seen docked to the International Space Station as it orbited above southern Argentina.

NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website are providing live coverage as three residents of the International Space Station prepare to take a spin around their orbital neighborhood in the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft, relocating it to prepare for the arrival of the next set of crew members.

Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA and Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, both of the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos, will undock from the Earth-facing port of the station’s Rassvet module at 12:38 p.m. and manually pilot the spacecraft to dock again at the space-facing Poisk docking port at 1:07 p.m.

The relocation will free up the Rassvet port for the docking of another Soyuz vehicle, designated Soyuz MS-18, which will carry three Expedition 65 crew members to the station next month. NASA’s Mark Vande Hei and Roscosmos’ Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov are scheduled to launch to the station Friday, April 9, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

This will be the 15th overall Soyuz port relocation and the first since August 2019.

Rubins, Ryzhikov, and Kud-Sverchkov will return to Earth April 17 in the Soyuz MS-17 that carried them to the space station in October 2020.

Learn more about station activities by following @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.



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