RSC Energia specialists at the Baikonur launch site have successfully completed operations to fill the manned transportation spacecraft Soyuz TMA-19M with propellant components and compressed gases.

After the filling the spacecraft was brought into the spacecraft processing facility and installed into a jig for further pre-launch processing.

The launch of the Soyuz TMA-19M with the crew of the next expedition to the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled for December 15 from Area No.1 (“Gagarin’s launch pad”) of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The main crew consists of a Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, a NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra, and an ESA astronaut Timothy Peake. The backup crew includes Anatoli Ivanishin (Roskosmos), Takuya Onishi (JAXA) and Kathleen Rubins (NASA).