BAIKONUR (Kazakhstan), September 23 (Itar-Tass) - The Soyuz-FG carrier rocket with the Soyuz TMA-10M manned spacecraft taken out of the operations and checkout facility and installed on the Gagarin launch pad of the Baikonur cosmodrome, an official of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Rosсosmos) said. “The roll-out of the rocket and its lacing on the launch pad passed in a normal mode,” he added.

The new space expedition will be launched on the Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) early morning September 26.

The main ISS crew consists of Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky, as well as NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins. Their backups are Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronaut Steven Swanson.

On Tuesday, September 24, the state commission, chaired by first deputy head of the Russian Federal Space Agency Oleg Frolov, will finally approve the membership of the crew that will fly to the ISS on Thursday.