MOSCOW, March 27 (Xinhua) -- The next principal and backup crews of the International Space Station (ISS) have been confirmed for an orbital duty trip, Russian Space Agency Roscosmos said Wednesday.
The state commission chaired by the Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin approved the crews of the Soyuz TMA-08M spaceship to be launched on March 29.
The main crew consists of two Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin and the NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy.
The backup crew consists of Russian Oleg Kotov, Sergei Ryazansky and NASA's Michael Hopkins.
The Soyuz-FG rocket carrying the spaceship is scheduled to be launched at 00:43 Moscow time Friday (20:43 GMT Thursday) from Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, according to Roscosmos' website.
The docking of the Soyuz TMA-08M with ISS will be conducted by a "bee-line" scheme which takes only six hours or four rotations around the Earth after the launch.
Currently, the 35th expedition has been working on the ISS. It consists of Canadian, Russian and U.S. members.
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