BAIKONUR SPACE CENTER (Kazakhstan), July 29. /TASS/. The Russian space vehicle Soyuz MS-05 has brought the next expedition to the International Space Station, a spokesperson for the state space corporation Roscosmos told TASS.
"The Soyuz MS-05 has docked to the Rassvet docking module," he said, adding that the maneuver had been done automatically.
The Soyuz-FG booster vehicle lifted off the so-called Gagarin launch pad at Baikonur at 18:41 Moscow Standard Time (15:41 UTC) on Friday, July 28. The space vehicle reached the near-Earth orbit in 10 minutes 30 seconds after the launch under a shortened six-hour pattern of flight.
In April, the previous expedition was also delivered to the ISS along the shortened flight pattern, while on the previous three flights the Soyuz MS vehicles approached the ISS along a two-day pattern, as the flights were qualification ones.
The new expedition includes Russian cosmonaut Sergei Ryazansky, NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik and the European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli of Italy.
The newly arriving party joined aboard the ISS the Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and NASA astronauts Jack Fischer and Peggy Whitson.