Soyuz MS-07 was a Soyuz spaceflight launched on 17 December 2017 07:21 UTC. It transported three members of the Expedition 54 crew to the International Space Station. MS-07 was the 136th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. The crew consisted of a Russian commander, Japanese doctor, and an American flight engineer.

Originnaly Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Skvortsov was to have commanded the mission, although he was removed from the flight crew and pushed back to Soyuz MS-13 due to a temporary medical issue, Shkaplerov was brought off the backup crew and replaced him as Soyuz commander and ISS commander for Expedition 55

When the Soyuz MS-07 mission appeared in the ISS flight manifest in 2014, its launch was projected for Nov. 30, 2017. According to original plans, the Soyuz MS-07 crew was to include two Russian and one US astronaut, but, after Roskosmos had made a decision to reduce the Russian crew on the ISS from three to two people, one seat was made available to a Japanese flight engineer.

The flight was later scheduled for December 27 but it was later advanced to Dec. 17, 2017, 04:00 Moscow Time. According to some reports, the launch date was moved forward to avoid the Western Christmas holidays and resulted in the extension of the flight to the ISS from several hours to two days, because on December 17, the spacecraft would enter the orbital plane of the station too far away for a quick rendezvous.

After its assembly at RKK Energia in Korolev, the Soyuz MS-07 was delivered to the Baikonur's spacecraft processing facility at Site 254 on Oct. 2, 2017. On November 9, a Roskosmos team delivered the spacecraft to the large echoless chamber, BEK, for testing of the ship's radio systems, which would be used for operational communications, transmission of telemetry and trajectory measurements during the rendezvous with the ISS. Tests were expected to continue for several days, the state corporation said.

Upon reaching its initial orbit, Soyuz MS-07 embarked on a two-day rendezvous profile with the ISS, which culminated with an automated docking at the MIM1/Rassvet module on the Russian segment of the station on Dec. 19, 2017, at 11:39 Moscow Time (3:39 a.m. EST) or four minutes ahead of the planned time of 11:43:02 Moscow Time. At the time, the two spacecraft were flying over Italy.

Following routine pressure checks, the hatch on the Rassvet side of the docking port connecting the two spacecraft was opened at 5:39 a.m. EST, followed by the Soyuz hatch at 5:55 a.m. EST (13:55 Moscow Time) as the spacecraft were flying over the Eastern Australia.

After the departure of the Soyuz MS-06 spacecraft with its crew from the ISS in February 2018, Expedition 54 aboard the station will be considered completed and the remaining members of the Soyuz MS-07 crew will officially begin the 55th long-duration expedition on the outpost.

After five and a half months in space, the Soyuz MS-07 spacecraft departed the International Space Station, ISS, on June 3, 2018. Onboard, the vehicle carried the same members of the 54th and 55th long-duration expedition who rode it into orbit back in December 2017: Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, NASA astronaut Scott Tingle and Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai. Shkaplerov occupied the center seat inside the Soyuz' descent module, with Tingle to his left and Kanai sitting in the right seat.