TMA-18M - 4" - TsENKI

Soyuz TMA-18M is a Soyuz spaceflight launched on 2 September 2015. It will provide the two twelve-months occupants (Scott Kelly and Mikhail Korniyenko) at the International Space Station with a fresh Soyuz capsule. TMA-18M is the 127th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft; the first having occurred in 1967. The ascent flight consists of a Russian commander and two flight engineers from Denmark (ESA) and Kazakhstan respectively.

 

Originally the third member should have been the British singer Sarah Brightman as a space tourist, but on May 13, 2015, she announced she had withdrawn from training. The Kazakh Aidyn Aimbetov is of the first Kazakh cosmonaut class, and the first selected to fly. The ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen became the first Dane in space.

 

The descent crew will be the same Russian commander and the two twelve-months occupants in March 2016. Two of the ascent crew members will return to Earth with Soyuz TMA-16M in September 2015.