Soyuz TMA-14M commander Alexander Samokutyayev and flight engineer Elena Serova of Roscosmos, together with flight engineer Butch Wilmore of NASA, are set to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday (Sept. 25) at 3:25 p.m. CDT (2025 GMT; 2:25 a.m. local time Sept. 26), from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Credit: NASA/Victor Zelentsov
They will dock their Soyuz to the station's Poisk module at 9:16 p.m. CDT (0216 GMT) following a four-orbit rendezvous.
About two hours later, the hatches between Soyuz TMA-14M and the station will open and Samokutyayev, Serova and Wilmore will be greeted by ISS Expedition 41 commander Max Suraev of Roscosmos and flight engineers Reid Wiseman of NASA and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency (ESA), who have been on board the orbiting laboratory since late May.
Samokutyayev, Serova and Wilmore will stay on the space station through mid-March. Surayev, Wiseman and Gerst will return to Earth on Nov. 10, leaving Wimore as Expedition 42 commander.
On Tuesday (Sept. 23), the Soyuz-FG rocket topped with the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft was rolled out to the launch pad by train and erected into position.