Two sets of crew – the main and the replacement – are heading to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where a Soyuz spacecraft will take them to the International Space Station on October 8th.
To ensure safety, the main crew and the replacement will fly out of an airport outside Moscow on two separate planes on Saturday morning.
Earlier, another Soyuz spacecraft carrying a three-person crew landed in Kazakhstan after a failed attempt to undock from the International Space Station.
However, the crew bound for the Baikonur launch pad appears unfazed by this incident.
“They just landed, just a little bit late. It’s not a problem,” Scott Kelly, a NASA member of the crew said. “It’s a testament to how well the technical experts on the ground and the crew can work together to solve problems.”
The main crew consists of two Russian cosmonauts, Aleksandr Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka, and one American astronaut, Scott Kelly. The replacement crew includes Sergey Volkov, Oleg Kononenko and Ronald Garan.