ISS Expedition 37/38 crew to fly to Baikonur to try on space suits

The main and backup crews of the long-term Expedition 37/38 to the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday are flying to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where they will be awaiting the launch of the Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft, which is scheduled for September 26. Press secretary of the Cosmonaut Training Centre (CTC) Irina Rogova told Itar-Tass that “the main crew is expected to fly out at 10:00 MSK, and the backup crew - at 10:30 MSK. Before the departure the cosmonauts will talk to reporters and have a traditional photo and video sessions in the Star City.” Crews, as usually, will take off to Baikonur from the Chkalovsky airfield outside Moscow in two planes. Cosmonauts of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazan, as well as NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins are have the final fitting of the Sokol spacesuits at Baikonur. They will also conduct a visual inspection of the Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft, after which the crew will make their remarks and suggestions, which will be taken into account by experts during the final “fine-tuning” of the ship before the start. The backups - Alexander Skvortsov, Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronaut Steven Swanson will conduct the final operations ahead of the launch along with the main crew. They will be on standby until the blastoff - when the main crew take their seats in the spaceship on the launch pad. The Soyuz spacecraft is to fly to the ISS on a short-cut journey, which will last less than six hours.