ZVEZDNY GORODOK (Moscow region). Nov 6 (Interfax-AVN) - The state interdepartmental commission has approved the next crew of the International Space Station (ISS) and their backups at a meeting at the Cosmonaut Training Center.
"The ISS Expedition 42/43 crew will include Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and U.S. astronaut Terry Virts," a source at the Cosmonaut Training Center press service told Interfax-AVN.
Their backups are Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui and NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren.
The next expedition will head for the ISS at 0:01 a.m. Moscow time on November 24 from the 31st launch site of Baikonur by the Soyuz TMA-15M manned spaceship. The approximate duration of their mission will stand at 169 days. The crew will handle Russia's Progress resupply ship and the European freighter ATV5.
The commission, which approved the next crew, consisted of representatives of the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), the Cosmonaut Training Center, the Energia Corporation, the Federal Medical and Biological Agency, the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences and ISS partner agencies.