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Russian cosmonauts plan to play football aboard ISS

Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin plan to play with NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio

MOSCOW, September 21. /TASS/. Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin plan to play football with NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Prokopyev said during an online news conference at TASS on Tuesday.

"It just so happened that our crew - all the three of us - are playing football," Prokopyev said. "I think we will have a chance to repeat something of this kind aboard the ISS. I have already played football at the station in 2018, with my colleagues Oleg Artemyev and Alexander Gerst. I think we will be able to find some sort of a ball there."

"Anyway, we have already played tennis, badminton and other sports that are favorite and traditional for our cosmonauts. So, one can certainly do sport in space with pleasure," the cosmonaut added.

A Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft will blast off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan at 16:54 on September 21. The spacecraft’s crew will comprise Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio. Their space mission is to last 188 days, until March 28. It will be the first Soyuz flight under the seat swap agreement. The spacecraft will also carry about 120 kilograms of payload.

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