The Soyuz spacecraft is about to take off

The Roscosmos has moved the Soyuz spacecraft to the launch pad, in preparation for the mission to take three astronauts to work for six months on the International Space Station (ISS), according to AFP.

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The Roscosmos said that the Soyuz TMA-02M was put into the first launch pad (also known as the Gagarin launch pad) at Russia's Baikonur Space Airport in Kazakhstan on June 5 and is scheduled to take off on August 8.6.

Soyuz TMA-02M is ready to take off - Photo: AFP

The three-man crew of the ship includes: flight commander Sergei Volkov (Russia), Michael Fossum (NASA's Aeronautics and Space Agency - NASA) and Satoshi Furukawa (Japanese Space Exploration Agency - JAXA ) will arrive at the space station after two days of flight.

When present at ISS , all three will join the three astronauts on the station, including the commander of the ISS Andrey Borisenko (Russia), Alexander Samokutyaev (Russia) and Ron Garan (the US) to join the international flight delegation 28th ISS.

It is known that this mission is the second flight of the modified Soyuz spacecraft with modern computer control systems . Previously, the first new generation Soyuz ship to ISS was Soyuz TMA-01M, flying into space on October 8, 2010.

As expected, the Soyuz crew TMA-02M will return to Earth in November 2011; three astronauts Borisenko, Samokutyaev and Garan will return home on Soyuz TMA-21 in September.

Soyuz crew TMA-02M (from left to right): Michael Fossum, Sergey Volkov and
Satoshi Furukawa - Photo: Reuters

On May 24, Roscosmos also welcomed the Soyuz TMA-20, carrying three astronauts, the commander of the 27th International ISS Flight Dmitry Kondratiev (Russia), NASA Cady Coleman astronaut and phi Italian astronaut of the European Space Agency (ESA) Paolo Nespoli returned home safely after 159 days traveling in space.

NASA is also preparing for the final mission of a 30-year space shuttle program with Atlantis , which is expected to leave the 39A launcher of the Kennedy Space Center , Florida (USA) on July 8.7.

After the end of the Atlantis train flight, the introduction of the ISS will depend entirely on the Russian Soyuz fleet with the cost of a seat that the United States must pay for the Russian side is more than $ 50 million.

Expected, the fastest is until 2015, the US can "unveil" the new generation spacecraft to bring people to ISS and go further to bring people back to the Moon and first to Mars.

Some pictures of Soyuz TMA-02M are included in the launch pad: