Roscosmos reported the launch of the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft to the ISS in April

The Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft will be launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in April this year. Roscosmos executive director for manned space programs Sergei Krikalev said this on January 29, answering a TASS question about the timeframe for sending the spacecraft into orbit.

"In April," he said.

He added that Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Wagner, as well as NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, are currently on the ISS. The crew of the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft were scheduled to return to Earth on April 1, but they will have to stay in orbit longer to allow for a changeover at the station.

"We are synchronizing everything. If the launch date is shifted, the landing date is also shifted," Krikalev explained.

Earlier, December 22, 2024, it became known that the ISS orbit was raised by 2.3 km before the launch of the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft. It is specified that the average height of the station's orbit increased by 2.3 km and amounted to 416.43 km above the Earth's surface.

Before that, December 20, it was reported that Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Wagner closed the exit hatch of the small research module "Search" on the ISS after work in outer space. The cosmonauts mounted and connected the SPIN-X1-MVN X-ray spectrometer and dismantled two exposure devices and two panels. The spacewalk lasted 7 hours 17 minutes and 47 seconds. Ovchinin and Wagner 's spacewalk began at 18:36 on December 19. It was planned to last 6 hours and 43 minutes.