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Record-breaking number of visitors to come for Soyuz-FG launch

The rocket will take the piloted craft to the orbit with 3 crewmembers - Roscosmos' Oleg Skripochka, NASA's Jessica Meir and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre first astronaut, Hazzaa Al Mansoori

MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/. The record-breaking number of guests - about 1,000 - will attend the launch of the Soyuz-FG carrier rocket scheduled for September 25. These are tourists and representatives for delegations and the mass media, a representative for Baikonur Cosmodrome told TASS on Monday.

The rocket will take the piloted craft Soyuz MS-15 to the orbit with three crew members on board - Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and the first astronaut of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre Hazzaa Al Mansoori.

"About 1,000 people are expected to be present at the launch of the rocket: representatives for the mass media and delegations, and tourists. About 500 of them will be tourists. It is a record-breaking number in the period of monitoring," the source said.

The launch of the last Soyuz-FG-class rocket will be held on Wednesday at Gagarin’s Start, a launch site at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, at 16:57 Moscow time. The Soyuz MS-15 is to dock at the International Space Station (ISS) six hours later, at 22:45 Moscow time. On Monday morning the carrier rocket was mounted on the launch pad.

After that piloted spacecraft will be taken to the orbit with the use of the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket, and the launch pad will be closed for reconstruction.

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Lavrov labels way West ramping up sanctions against Russia as mindless

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