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Roscosmos posted that the 2021-03-20 Soyuz-2.1a launch was postponed to a backup date and later rescheduled for 2021-03-21 before being rescheduled for 2021-03-22.
Mark Vande Hei and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov are scheduled to launch on Soyuz MS-18 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday, 2021-04-09.
The new contract is similar to an agreement announced in February 2019 for a 2021 Soyuz flight to the station that also featured two spaceflight participants and one professional cosmonaut on board.
GK Launch Services is an operator of commercial launches established by the decision of Roscosmos and is authorized to conclude commercial contracts for launches using Soyuz-2 family launch vehicles from Russian spaceports.
Roscosmos will launch the humanoid robot FEDOR on an uncrewed Soyuz launch in August to test using the Soyuz-2 rocket to launch that spacecraft.
Russian Space Systems Company plans to deploy the Efir satellites into 870-kilometer orbits by 2025.