Soyuz TMA-20 Launch Campaign Underway

The Soyuz TMA-20, carrying cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, the U.S. and Italian flight engineers, Catherine Coleman and Paolo Nespoli, is scheduled to blast off from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan on December 15. The three astronauts will be onboard the ISS for 152 days. The trio will bring holiday gifts to the International Space Station.

The three astronauts will join Expedition 26 commander Scott Kelly and flight engineers Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka, who have been aboard the station since early October.

Soyuz spacecraft will be the only human link to the station after planned retirement of the U.S. shuttle fleet next year during the "gap" or time until the American commercial space launch capability is both proven and approved by the FAA and NASA.