Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, along with NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, will fly the Soyuz MS-17 capsule from its current port to another on Friday.
Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins arrived on the Soyuz capsule space station after being launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in October.
Crew members will move the spacecraft from the Rassvet module, which has an Earth-facing port, and move it to the Poisk dock, which faces space. The disconnection will take place at 12:38 ET and the docking is expected at 13:07 ET.
This will free up the port of the Rassvet module for another crew to arrive on the spacecraft next month via the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft. The entry crew includes NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hey and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov. They will launch on April 9 in Kazakhstan.
Rubins, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov will return to Earth in the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft on April 17.
This type of reconfiguration last took place in August 2019 and will be the 15th relocation of the Soyuz port in the 20-year history of astronauts living on the space station.
Members of the NASA-SpaceX Crew-1 historian, including NASA astronauts Victor Glover Jr., Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker, and Japanese space exploration agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi, who launched from the U.S. at the space station in November, will also return after the launch of Crew-2 next month.
This second rotation using the NASA-SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft will include NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japanese Aerospace Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet
Crew-2, which could be launched on April 22, will join Crew-1 on the space station before Crew-1 returns to Earth.