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Russia's Soyuz TMA-16M spaceship to be re-docked to another ISS module

It will be carried out in order to receive a new Soyuz ship with a crew on board

MOSCOW, August 28. /TASS/. Russia’s Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft will be re-docked on Friday from the Poisk module of the International Space Station (ISS) to the Zvezda module in order to receive a new Soyuz ship with a crew on board, the Mission Control Centre (MCC) outside Moscow told TASS.

"Re-docking of the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft will be carried out from the docking unit of the Poisk mini research module to the docking port of the Zvezda service module," the MCC said.

The spacecraft’s re-docking will be conducted by the Russian ISS segment crew. "The Soyuz spaceship will be re-docked in a manual mode by the crew - [Russian cosmonauts] Gennady Padalka, Mikhail Korniyenko and [NASA astronaut] Scott Kelly," the MCC said.

Transfer hatches between the spacecraft and ISS will be closed at 07:00 am, Moscow time, the undocking operation will be carried out at 10:08 am, Moscow time, and the docking will take place at 10:30 am, Moscow time.

The operation is aimed at freeing the docking unit of the Poisk mini research module, which should receive the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft that is to be launched on September 2. It will transport to the ISS Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen and Kazakhstan’s cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov.

The current ISS mission international crew is comprised of Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, Mikhail Korniyenko and Oleg Kononenko, American astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui.

The Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome on March 27 and docked to the ISS on March 28.

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