Union MS-13

On March 15, NASA Deputy Head Bill Gerstenmeier at a press conference following the launch and docking of the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft with the ISS announced that astronauts Andrew Morgan and Christina Cook from the previous crew of the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft will spend longer than planned . Such a delay of astronauts on the ISS will provide an opportunity to conduct a short flight to the ISS to a space flight participant from the United Arab Emirates ^[4] .

On July 19, 2019, the State Commission for conducting flight tests of manned space systems approved the composition of the main and backup crews of the Soyuz MS-13 manned spacecraft. The main crew included: cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov (commander), astronauts Luca Parmitano (flight engineer-1) and Andrew Morgan (flight engineer-2). The backup crew: astronaut Sergei Ryzhikov, astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Soichi Noguchi ^[5] .

On July 20, 2019 at 19:28:21 Moscow time, the Soyuz-FG launch vehicle with the Soyuz MS-13 manned spacecraft launched from the site No. 1 (Gagarinsky Start) of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. On board the manned spacecraft: astronaut Alexander Skvortsov, astronauts Luca Parmitano and Andrew Morgan, crew call sign - “Cliffs”. The rapprochement of the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft with the space station and the approach to the aft docking unit of the Zvezda service module took place automatically in a four-turn mode ^[6] . The spacecraft docked with the ISS on July 21, 2019 at 01:48 Moscow time ^[7] .

On the morning of August 26, the Soyuz MS-13 TPK was successfully rebooted. The ship sailed from the Docking Star unit and moored to the Docking Station Search . The entire operation was carried out manually by the astronaut Alexander Skvortsov, who was at that time on the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft. Astronauts Andrew Morgan (NASA) and Luca Parmitano (European Space Agency) attended the ship with him. During the reconnaissance operation , astronaut Alexei Ovchinin , astronauts Tyler Haig and Christina Cook remained on board the ISS ^[8] .