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Three space station crew members wait for departure on board Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft

The Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft with Yurchikhin, Fischer and Whitson on board is scheduled to undock the ISS at 00:58 Moscow time on Sunday

KOROLEV /Moscow Region/, September 2. /TASS/. Three crew members of the International Space Station, who are to return back to the earth on Sunday, have left the ISS and are now waiting for their departure onboard the Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft, a Mission Control official told TASS on Saturday.

"Transfer hatches were closed at 21:46 Moscow time. The crewmembers who are to return to the earth have left the space station and are now on board the Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft," the official said.

Until recently, the ISS carried a crew of six: Russia’s Fyodor Yurchikhin and Sergey Ryazansky, NASA’s Peggy Whitson, Jack Fischer and Randolph Bresnik and the European Space agency’s Paolo Nespoli.

The Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft with Yurchikhin, Fischer and Whitson on board is scheduled to undock the ISS at 00:58 Moscow time on Sunday. It is expected to touch down southeast of Kazakhstan’s Zhezkazgan at 4:22 Moscow time.

Whitson arrived to the International Space Station on November 17, 2016 and spent nearly one year on the orbit. Yurchikhin and Fischer arrived to the ISS on April 20, 2017, and their mission lasted 135 days.

The launch of the Soyuz MS-06 with Russia’s Aleksandr Misurkin, and NASA’s Mark Vande Hei and Joseph Acaba is due on September 13 at 00:17 Moscow time.