Just recently, the Russian Federation has stated that it will launch the crewed flight mission to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Soyuz MS-02 on November 1. However, things are not looking too good for the Russian space agency as it just announced that the number of cosmonauts in the ISS will be decreased from three cosmonauts to only one.
The two new announcements have caused the rescheduling of its own space flight programs. The Soyuz MS-02 mission was originally set for a September 23 launch.
Technical Problems Ensure on Russian Soyuz Program
However, due to technical issues regarding a short circuit on one of the spaceship's parts, it was forced to face a delay. The Soyuz MS-02 is an upgraded version of the original Soyuz MS spacecraft, and will be the second of its many more missions to come.
The Soyuz MS-02 will be launched by the Soyuz-FG rocket in Kazakhstan, under the responsibility of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It will transport three crew members to the International Space Station under the Expedition 49 banner. The three crew members are Shane Kimbrough, a NASA astronaut, and two other Russian cosmonauts in the likes of Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrei Borisenko.
The Big Three Space Men
Last September 8, the three crew members underwent its final briefings and preparations before the launch date. But due to the unforeseen delays, the three spacemen returned back to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center to wait for the postponed launching and instead get back to further training.
Based on one of the sources of TASS, "In case the endorsed schedule is observed and the MLM gets into operation in December 2017, the curtailment will affect only one Russian crew. Otherwise, the practice of curtailment will continue until the commissioning of the module."
Hopefully, things will turn out well for the upcoming Soyuz rocket launch, as these missions, however small they are, are all significant in supporting humanity's cause for furthering our reaches in outer space.
