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Cosmonauts prepare to swap spaceships at ISS

The crew of the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft includes Oleg Novitsky, Marina Vasilevskaya, and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara

© Sergey Savostianov/TASS, archive

ISS, March 30. /TASS/. Oleg Kononenko, commander of the Roscosmos cosmonaut squad, who is also a TASS special correspondent on the International Space Station (ISS), has "swapped" the manned Soyuz MS spacecraft with his colleague Oleg Novitsky, commander of the 21st expedition to the ISS, within the framework of a shift turnover.

The Soyuz spacecraft normally spend six months at the ISS. Since Kononenko and cosmonaut Nikolay Chub are currently on a year-long mission, while Novitsky and Marina Vasilevskaya, the first Belarusian female flight participant, are visiting the station for a two-week expedition, the crews need to swap spaceships. Kononenko and Chub will use the Soyuz that the 21st expedition arrived on to return to Earth in September.

Now, the crew of the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft slated to depart next week includes Novitsky, Vasilevskaya, and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara who arrived on that spaceship in September.

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