MOSCOW. Feb 4 (Interfax) - Cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka will succeed Italy's Luca Parmitano, who is returning to Earth on Tuesday, as the next commander of the International Space Station (ISS), a representative of Roscosmos told Interfax.
"Oleg Skripochka will be the next ISS commander," the representative said.
The ISS has a six-member international crew at the moment, but Alexander Skvortsov of Russia, Parmitano of the European Space Agency (ESA), and Christina Koch of NASA will return to Earth on board the Soyuz MS-13 spaceship on Thursday.
The day before his departure, Parmitano will resign as ISS commander, and Skripochka will be appointed in his place and will command the station until his return to Earth.
Starting on Thursday, the station will be manned by Skripochka and American astronauts Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan.
As reported earlier, ISS Expedition 63 comprising Nikolai Tikhonov and Andrei Babkin of Roscosmos, as well as Chris Cassidy of NASA, will arrive on April 9.