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The Soyuz TMA-20M for the next International Space Station (ISS) crew is transported from an assembling hangar to the launchpad ahead of its launch scheduled on March 19, at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan March 16, 2016. A Russian Soyuz rocket has reached its last stop before liftoff Friday with two Russian cosmonauts and veteran NASA flight engineer Jeff Williams, who is slated to break the record for the most cumulative time spent in space by a U.S. astronaut. The kerosene-fueled rocket is set for launch at 21:26 GMT (5:26 p.m. EDT) Friday from historic launch pad No. 1 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the same starting point used on the first human spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin in 1961. Commander Alexey Ovchinin, a 44-year-old first-time space flier, will occupy the center seat of the Soyuz TMA-20M space capsule for Friday’s launch. Cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, who logged 159 days in orbit on a space station expedition in 2010 and 2011, will sit in the left seat of the Soyuz spacecraft, serving as board engineer No. 1 and assisting Ovchinin during the flight. Williams, who will become commander of the International Space Station in June, will take the right seat of the Soyuz capsule for ascent. He is making his fourth trip into space, and his third long-duration mission to the space station. The trio will join three crew members already aboard the orbiting outpost 250 miles above Earth – NASA Expedition 47 commander Tim Kopra and flight engineers Tim Peake and Yuri Malenchenko from the European Space Agency and Russia, respectively. Ovchinin, Skripochka and Williams will restore the space station crew to six members after docking to the research lab’s Poisk module at 03:12 GMT Saturday (11:12 p.m. EDT Friday), less than six hours after liftoff. The Soyuz TMA-20M crew is scheduled to return to Earth around Sept. 7 after 172 days in orbit. (Photo by Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)
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