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Space station's prime, backup crews get Baikonur commission’s approval

Russian veteran cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and US and Japanese astronauts Kjell N. Lindgren and Kimiya Yui are set to blast off to the ISS on July 23 and to spend 163 days on the orbit
Prime crew of the new mission of the International Space Station, Kjell N. Lindgren, Oleg Kononenko and Kimiya Yui  EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV
Prime crew of the new mission of the International Space Station, Kjell N. Lindgren, Oleg Kononenko and Kimiya Yui
© EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV

BAIKONUR, July 21. /TASS/. A state commission at the Baikonur press centre in Kazakhstan has approved the prime and backup crews of the new mission of the International Space Station (ISS), the Russian Space Agency’s press service said on Tuesday.

Russian veteran cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and US and Japanese astronauts Kjell N. Lindgren and Kimiya Yui are set to blast off to the ISS on July 23 and to spend 163 days on the orbit.

The backup crew comprises Russia’s Yuri Malenchenko, NASA’sTimothy Kopra and Timothy Peake of the European Space Agency.

Kononenko, Lindgren and Kimiya Yui had been preparing for a May 26 blastoff, but the flight was delayed after the failed launch of the Progress M-27M cargo spacecraft in late April.