Space Stations

Roscosmos Sets October 19th as Launch Date for Next Space Station Crew

By Marc Boucher
Status Report
October 7, 2016
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Roscosmos Sets October 19th as Launch Date for Next Space Station Crew
Expedition 49-50 crew members (from left) Shane Kimbrough, Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko pose for pictures Sept. 9 in front of their Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft. Credit: NASA.
NASA

After reviewing the documents on operations that were carried out to repair the technical malfunction of the Soyuz MS-02 manned transport vehicle (MTV) the State Commission resolved that the space ship may be launched to the International Space Station (ISS).
Based on quality assurance tests of MTV Soyuz MS-02, the specialists of Rocket and Space Corporation Energiya determined that the control equipment was activated by the landing system cable, which was jammed during the test operations. After the cable malfunction was fixed, engineers ran a full trial of the space ship.

Based on trial results, the Commission resolved to launch MTV Soyuz MS-02 (decree #732) on October 19, 2016, at 11:05 AM MT.

Between now and December ROSCOSMOS State Corporation will carry out all the launches within the program of manned flights to the ISS:

The launch of MTV Soyuz MS-02 is scheduled for October 19, 2016;
The launch of MTV Soyuz MS-03 is scheduled for November 16, 2016;
The launch of Progress MS-04 cargo spacecraft will take place on December 1, 2016.

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