RSC Energia (which is included in State Corporation Roscosmos) held a session of the Council of Chief Designers for the Russian Segment (RS) of the International Space Station (ISS).

General Director of RSC Energia Nikolai Sevastianov talked about the tasks of the Council of Chief Designers which included reviewing the launch readiness of the Crew Transportation Spacecraft (CTS) Soyuz MS-13, of the launch vehicle Soyuz-FG, of the ground infrastructure, and the readiness of the ISS for the next stage in its mission.

The progress report on the preparations for the launch of the Crew Transportation Spacecraft Soyuz MS-13 was made by the first deputy general director of RSC Energia Sergei Romanov.

Reports on the readiness of all the systems and instrumentation of Soyuz MS-13 and the ISS RS were also made by chief designers, responsible representatives of RSC Energia and other organizations involved in the program: RSC Progress, NII TP, Russian Space Systems, NII Submicron, R&D PE Zvezda, TsNIIMash, MKB Iskra, Research Institute of Parachute Engineering, KB KhimMash, NITS, NII SK, TsENKI, ES AKPC Service, IBMP, Cosmonaut Training Center, KB Salyut, etc.

First deputy head of the Cosmonaut Training Center Maxim Kharlamov reported on the readiness of the main and backup crews of ISS-60/61 for carrying out the forthcoming program of work onboard the ISS.

RSC Energia first deputy general designer for flight operations and testing of rocket and space systems Vladimir Soloviev gave a report on the ISS mission results and the status of its systems, the results of scientific experiments and the mission plan for the upcoming period.

Altogether, during Expedition ISS-59, 48 space experiments under the program of scientific and applied research (including joint experiments with NASA and ESA) were carried out, out of which 40 experiments involved crew participation.

The commander of Expedition ISS-60 will be a Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin. Altogether, there are plans to carry out 52 experiments under the Russian program of scientific and applied research (including joint experiments with NASA and ESA), out of which 46 experiments will involve crew participation. "There are sufficient available resources to carry out the expedition program. The ground facilities, and the mission control personnel are ready for the launch of Soyuz MS-13.

NASA representative Cavin Mellet told about the status of the ISS US orbital segment, and declared it ready for arrival of Soyuz MS-13.

Based on the results of the session, the Council of Chief Designers approved the following RSC Energia proposals:

• on the plan of forthcoming work to prepare Soyuz MS-13 for launch on July 20, 2019;
• on delivering to the ISS the next expedition crew of three:
  • Alexander Skvortsov (Roscosmos),
  • Andrew Morgan (NASA),
  • Luca Parmitano (ESA).

The ISS Russian Segment was cleared to proceed with the next phase of the ISS operation.