BAIKONUR /Kazakhstan/, March 20. /TASS/. The State commission has approved the crew of the Soyuz MS-25 manned spacecraft, to be launched from the Baikonur space site on March 21 with a Soyuz-2.1a vehicle, Roscosmos has told the media.

The main crew includes the first Belarusian participant in space flights Marina Vasilevskaya, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson. Belarus’ Anastasia Lenkova, Russia’s Ivan Vagner and the oldest active NASA astronaut Donald Pettit will be on standby.

Novitsky and Vasilevskaya will stay on the ISS for about two weeks and return on April 2 on the Soyuz MS-24 with NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara. Dyson's mission will last until September. She will return to Earth with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko (TASS special correspondent on the ISS) and Nikolay Chub.

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket is scheduled to blast off from Baikonur's launch pad No. 31 (Vostok) at 4:21 p.m. Moscow time (1:21 p.m. GMT) on March 21.