INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION, September 6. /TASS/. Russia cosmonauts, who are expected to return to the Earth on board the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft, have requested to include a watermelon, as well as pickled cucumbers and mushrooms, into their first meal after the landing.

A TASS correspondent aboard the International Space Station, Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Petelin, confirmed that the landing of Soyuz is scheduled for 14:18 Moscow time on September 27.

"Also, we have already started to carry the return load into the Soyuz MS-23 capsule," the cosmonaut added.

On November 17, 2021, TASS and Roscosmos signed a memorandum of cooperation, according to which the news agency opened an office onboard the ISS. Cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin was the first special correspondent on the ISS. His flight lasted 12 days. He was succeeded by Oleg Artemyev in March 2022. Now Dmitry Petelin is working at the TASS correspondent office on the ISS, and deputy chief of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center Oleg Kononenko, who will depart for the International Space Station (ISS) in mid-September, will become the fourth TASS special reporter on board the station.