Soyuz MS-18 to have all-Russian crew - Roscosmos
MOSCOW. Nov 3 (Interfax) - The interagency commission on the assignment of cosmonauts has confirmed the appointment of crewmembers for Soyuz MS-18: the spaceship will be manned by three Russian cosmonauts, Roscosmos said in a statement.
"The interagency commission for the assignment of cosmonauts has approved the members of the main crew and their backups for International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 65," the statement said.
The main crew will consist of Oleg Novitsky, Pyotr Dubrov, and Sergei Korsakov.
Their backups are Anton Shkaplerov, Andrei Babkin, and Dmitry Petelin.
The spaceship will be launched to the ISS in April 2021.
This is the first space mission for Dubrov and Korsakov and the third for Novitsky. Babkin and cosmonaut Nikolai Tikhonov were due to go on a space mission in April 2020, but were replaced by their backups, Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, for health reasons. Tikhonov left the cosmonaut team in July.
The last time a Soyuz spaceship had an all-Russian crew was over 20 years ago. Head of the Cosmonaut Training Center Pavel Vlasov told Interfax earlier that an all-Russian crew would travel to the ISS in 2020. It was reported later that NASA had purchased a few more Soyuz seats for its astronauts due to U.S. manned spaceships not being ready.