MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/. An interagency commission has recommended that the main and backup crews of the Soyuz MS-26 spaceship be allowed to train for their flight to the International Space Station (ISS) at the Baikonur spaceport, the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center said in a statement.

"The commission concluded that the crews of the ISS Expedition 72 are ready to perform a space flight aboard the Soyuz MS-26 spaceship and carry out work in the Russian segment of the ISS. The commission recommended that the cosmonauts and astronauts start training at the Baikonur spaceport," the statement reads.

A Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying the Soyuz MS-26 manned spaceship is set to launch from the Baikonur spaceport on September 11. The main crew of the ISS Expedition 72 will include Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, as well as NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, while the backup team is made of Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky and NASA astronaut Jonathan Kim. The crew is scheduled to return to Earth on April 1, 2025.

In July 2022, Roscosmos and NASA signed a seat-swap agreement allowing Russian cosmonauts to fly to the ISS on US spacecraft and US astronauts to travel aboard Russian spaceships. The agreement makes sure that there always is at least one Russian cosmonaut and one NASA astronaut aboard the ISS to serve its Russian and US segments. News came in December 2023 that Roscosmos and NASA planned to continue cross-flights until 2025 inclusive.