Expedition 51-52 Crew Meets Officials and Reporters as Launch Approaches
At their Cosmonaut Hotel crew quarters in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, Expedition 51-52 Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineer Jack Fischer of NASA along with their backups, Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscomos and Randy Bresnik of NASA appeared before the Russian State Commission April 19 as officials gave their final approval for the launch of Yurchikhin and Fischer to the International Space Station April 20 in their Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft for a four and a half month mission. After the State Commission meeting, the crew members conducted a news conference with reporters attending the launch.