MOSOW, August 19. /TASS/. The adjustment of the orbital altitude of the International Space Station (ISS) has been rescheduled for the back-up date at the US request, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said in a statement on Thursday.

"The adjustment of the orbital altitude of the ISS has been postponed to the back-up date, August 21, at the US side’s request. This request was made due to the technical unpreparedness of the US segment, of which the partners’ flight director informed the Flight Control Center," the statement says.

Under the original plan, Russia’s Zvezda service module was scheduled to fire its thrusters at 07:04 a.m. Moscow time for 46 seconds to raise the space station’s medium orbital altitude by 1.2 km to create ballistic conditions before the launch of a Soyuz MS-19 manned spacecraft and the landing of the Soyuz MS-18’s descent capsule. However, Roscosmos announced on Thursday morning that the orbit adjustment had been postponed to the back-up date, August 21.

Currently, seven crewmembers are working aboard the orbital outpost: Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.

The Soyuz MS-19 manned spacecraft is set to deliver to the ISS cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov and also actress Yulia Peresild and film director Klim Shipenko who will shoot the first-ever movie on the orbital outpost.