BAIKONUR. Feb 25 (Interfax-AVN) - The Baikonur Space Center is preparing to launch the Soyuz TMA-08M manned spaceship and the Progress M-19M resupply ship to the International Space Station (ISS).
Soyuz TMA-08M has been transported to the vacuum chamber of the assembly and testing building of the 54th site. Air-tightness tests began on Friday morning, a Baikonur source told Interfax.
The vacuum chamber tests will last until the middle of next week.
Meanwhile, Progress M-19M radio systems have been tested in the anechoic chamber.
"The trials ended today. Progress M-19M is being transferred to another site for more testing," the source said.
A Soyuz-FG rocket will carry Soyuz TMA-08M on space mission on March 28.
The 35/36th expedition will board the ship. The crew members are Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin of Russia and Chris Cassidy of NASA; their backups are Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky of Russia and Michael Scott Hopkins of NASA.
Soyuz TMA-08M will be the first manned spaceship to take a shortcut to the ISS. The docking will take place several hours after the launch. Regularly, it takes manned spaceships two days to travel to the ISS.
Progress-M resupply ships tested the new route in the second half of 2012 and early 2013.
Progress M-19M will be launched on April 24.
It will deliver over 2.5 tons of traditional cargo: station fuel, food, water and air for astronauts, scientific equipment and expendables.