Main, backup crews for Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft admitted to prelaunch preparations to fly to ISS from Baikonur Cosmodrome

MOSCOW. March 1 (Interfax) - An interagency commission has admitted the main and backup crews for the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft to pre-launch preparations at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russia's Roscosmos state space corporation said on Friday.

"The commission has concluded that the crewmembers of Expedition 71 (the U.S. segment) and the 21st Visiting Expedition (the Russian segment) are ready for spaceflight onboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft and work on the ISS, and can be recommended for starting preparations at Baikonur Cosmodrome," Roscosmos said.

The interagency commission includes officials from Roscosmos, the Cosmonaut Training Center, the Energia space rocket corporation, the Federal Medical-Biological Agency (FMBA), the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medical-Biological Problems, the Zvezda research and production enterprise, and other organizations.

The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft's launch to the ISS is scheduled for March 21, 2024. The main crew includes Roscosmos Cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, Belarus's Marina Vasilevskaya, and NASA Astronaut Tracy Dyson. The backup crew comprises Roscosmos Cosmonaut Ivan Vagner, Belarus's Anastasia Lenkova, and NASA Astronaut Donald Pettit.

Novitsky and Vasilevskaya will spend 12 days on the station and return to Earth along with NASA Astronaut Loral O'Hara on board the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft in March. Dyson's mission should continue until September, and she will return to Earth on board Soyuz MS-25 along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub.

Vasilevskaya is a flight attendant of the Belarusian national airline Belavia, and Lenkova is a children's surgeon at the Belarusian National Scientific and Practical Center.