NASA TV To Broadcast ISS Crew Launch, Scheduled To Takeoff Next Week

The three crew members of Expedition 49/50 are scheduled to be launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on October 19 at 4:05 a.m. EDT (2:05 p.m. local time) from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome. The event will reportedly be covered live from 3:15 a.m. EDT on NASA TV as well as on the American space agency's website.

Expedition 49/50 crew members comprise of Roscosmos cosmonauts Andrey Borisenko and Sergey Ryzhikov and NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough. The trio will travel on the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft for two days to examine the upgraded systems before docking at the Poisk module of the space station on October 21 at 5:59 a.m. EDT. The docking event will also be covered live by NASA TV, and the event will be broadcast from 5:15 a.m. EDT

The hatches between the ISS and Soyuz will be unlocked at around 8:35 a.m. The new inhabitants of the space laboratory will be welcomed by crew members of expedition 48/49, that include Commander Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos and flight engineers Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Kate Rubins of NASA. The previous expedition members have been aboard the flying laboratory since July 7.

Expedition 49/50 was originally supposed to be launched on September 23; however the date was postponed due to technical issues with the Soyuz spacecraft, as per Roscosmos."Roscosmos has decided to move the launch of Soyuz MS-02 ship planned for September 23 due to technical reasons after holding tests on the Baikonur Cosmodrome," a Roscosmos official had stated.

The three new members of ISS are scheduled to return back on Earth in late February, spending a little more than four months aboard the space station. The full six person crew will continue work on numerous experiments in the fields of Earth science, physical science, biotechnology and biology on the space laboratory.