ISS, November 27. /TASS/. Roscosmos has announced that cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Sergey Mikayev, and NASA astronaut Christopher Williams have successfully transferred from the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS).

"The hatches are open. The crew is greeting Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Sergey Mikayev, and Christopher Williams," the state corporation stated via its Telegram channel. They were welcomed aboard by Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritsky (TASS special correspondent on the ISS), and Oleg Platonov, alongside NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, Michael Fincke, Jonny Kim, and Japanese astronaut Yui Kimiya.

The Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle, carrying the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, left Baikonur Cosmodrome on Thursday at 12:28 p.m. Moscow time (GMT+3). The spacecraft docked with the Rassvet module at 3:38 p.m. Moscow time (GMT+3).

The crew is scheduled to spend 242 days in orbit, returning at the end of July 2026. Their eight-month mission will feature over 40 scientific experiments and two spacewalks. The first extravehicular activity will focus on installing the Sun-Terahertz instrument, designed to predict solar flares. During the second spacewalk, cosmonauts will perform maintenance on the Zarya module and replace worn components.

Additionally, descendants of fruit flies sent aboard the Bion-M No. 2 biosatellite have been launched into space. For the first time, Sberbank's GigaChat neural network will assist the cosmonauts with their reporting tasks.