Backup Crew: Commander: Anton Shkaplerov, Roscosmos Flight Engineer 1: Andrei Babkin, Roscosmos Flight Engineer 2: Mark T. Vande Hei, NASA
Soyuz MS-17 was a Soyuz spaceflight that was launched on 14 October 2020. It transported three crew members of the Expedition 63/64 crew to the International Space Station. Soyuz MS-17 was the 145th crewed flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. The crew consisted of a Russian commander and a Russian and American flight engineer.
The mission marked the first use of a new "ultrafast" two-orbit rendezvous flight plan with the Soyuz, which saw Soyuz MS-17 arrive at the ISS within approximately three hours after the launch.
On 19 March 2021, the crew of Soyuz MS-17 boarded their spacecraft to relocate it from Rassvet to Poisk to make way for the arrival and docking of the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, which launched on 9 April 2021 carrying cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky, Pyotr Dubrov and the astronaut of NASA, Mark T. Vande Hei to the ISS ahead of a six-month stay. The two spacecraft had a nine-day handover period before Soyuz MS-17 departed. This is necessary to avoid de-crewing the Russian Orbital Segment (ROS) of the ISS since no Russian cosmonaut was present aboard SpaceX Crew-1.
