The crews of the Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft have started exams before the flight to the ISS

The main and backup crew of the Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft began comprehensive exam training before flying to the International Space Station (ISS) on July 14. This was reported on June 18 by a correspondent of Izvestia.

The main crew of the spacecraft includes Roscosmos cosmonauts Peter Dubrov and Anna Kikina, as well as NASA astronaut Anil Menon. The backup crew includes Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Konstantin Borisov, as well as American astronaut Denise Burnham.

Both crews will take turns training on the simulators of the Soyuz MS manned spacecraft and the Russian segment of the ISS. The backup team started the exam on June 18, and the main team will be tested the next day, on June 19.

It is reported that the astronauts have already passed separate exams on the manual approach of the spacecraft to the station, on berthing and docking from one module to another, on remote control of the Progress MS cargo ship in manual mode and on manual controlled descent to Earth.

"We are ready for any challenges, including the most serious ones," Dubrov said.

He also added that he is ready to rely on each of the astronauts and is confident in all members of the ISS crew during their flight. Dubrov expressed confidence that the work in orbit will be wonderful. Petelin said before the start of the exams that the backup crew was determined to do a good job and was ready to complete all the tasks they faced.

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On June 10, Roscosmos announced that the ISS orbit had been raised by 1.6 km and now stands 419 km above the Earth's surface. The main goal of the initiative was to create conditions for the safe arrival of the Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft and the landing of the Soyuz MS-28. It is noted that the correction was carried out using the engines of the Progress MS-34 cargo ship.

In May, it was reported that Russian cosmonauts completed a spacewalk, during which equipment was installed to study solar flares. The specialists installed the scientific equipment of the Sun–Terahertz experiment on the Zvezda module of the ISS segment, dismantled the cassette of the Ekran-M space experiment, and also removed and took the Biorisk equipment container from the Poisk module to the station.