Next Space Station Residents Prepare For Launch – Tuesday, November 25, 2025

At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Soyuz MS-28 prime and backup crews completed final pre-flight training ahead of the scheduled Nov. 27 launch of NASA’s Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev for a planned eight-month mission to the International Space Station. The training activities that took place Nov. 11 through Nov. 21 include the rollout of the Soyuz 2.1a launch vehicle to its launch pad in Baikonur Nov. 24. Join NASA as we go forward to the Moon and on to Mars -- discover the latest on Earth, the Solar System and beyond with a weekly update in your inbox. Subscribe at: https://www.nasa.gov/subscribe

What is said in the film

Crew members, please take your seats with your crews. We will have a training session. Vehicle is ready. Prime crew will be executing. Backup crew will be monitoring.

Let's begin. Hello. First question for the commander. Sergei, this is your second mission. How did your, perception of space flight changed after the first flight?

What, did you learn from your first mission? And what experiences will you apply for your second mission? Well, there's only there can only be one first mission. Of course, we gained experience. Being a part of a backup crew helps a lot.

All this training before we become a prime crew. And during my first mission, I already fully, have learned what is life on this station like? And now my job is to pass on this experience to Sergei and Chris. The training is structured in such a way in both, Russia and the United States that we, try to simulate as much as possible the conditions of life in the vehicle on the station. And Sergei and Chris both, have a pretty good idea of what it will be like.

Now, we are at the final stage of our training. We are going to be working in our actual flight vehicles. So things that are moving well. Sergei Nikolaevich, a question for you. This is your first mission.

Are you taking any, sort of, good luck charm? Well, I can say I have a good luck charm proper, but I am taking with me photographs of my family. And in keeping with our promise. That we gave at the press conference, we are bringing up, mug, from the school where, that guy in studied. Thank you.

Chris. You used to, work in the, cancer research field. What are the common areas between that field and the spaceflight? Well, I think it will be very interesting. As we do, the experiments in space.

In space, there is radiation, which is different from the radiation on Earth. And as we compare that to what we can investigate how cancer works. And how we can treat it. Thank you very much. And the final question for the crew, for each of you, what will be the next challenge after this increment?

What are the goals that you're setting for yourselves? Well, on this question, on the one hand is easy, but on the other hand is difficult. Right now we are 100% focused on the current mission ahead of us. And I think. All of us, after we get to this station, we will already begin dreaming of our next flight.

Maybe it will be of, mission beyond low Earth orbit. So to give legislators today, you had a first flight check. This is a very critical operation. Please tell us, what do you pay attention to? First of all, when you do this.

Well, during the first check. Check, we inspect the vehicle. We verify that all elements of the vehicle. All items are in their proper locations. In the proper configuration, we check if the ergonomically vehicle is suitable for us.

We also check communication equipment. We check the seats. For in both, flight and landing positions. And we do this in flight suits as well as without flight suits to make sure that, we will be comfortable at the launch pad. And during the flight.

Thank you very much. Looks like we forgot our original seating arrangement. Well, as long as we sit next to the commander. Good morning. So today is our second simulation.

Remember all the questions that we had before and address those, among all other things? Do you have any questions? No questions. So let's begin.

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