The fourth crewed space launch of 2025 is set to fly to low-Earth orbit. Soyuz MS-27 is scheduled to liftoff at 05:47 UTC on Tuesday, April 8, from Site 31/6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Roscosmos’ Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritsky, and NASA’s Jonathan “Jonny” Kim will be onboard, flying to the International Space Station (ISS).
With an on-time launch, Soyuz MS-27 will dock to the Prichal module of the Russian segment of the Station at 09:03 UTC on Tuesday. After docking, this Soyuz will join Soyuz MS-26, Crew Dragon Endurance, Progress MS-29, and Progress MS-30 as part of the visiting vehicle complement at the orbiting laboratory.
The three Soyuz MS-27 crew members will join the Crew-10 and Soyuz MS-26 astronauts on the ISS, increasing the number of people on the Station to 10 during the handover between the MS-26 and MS-27 crews. Soyuz MS-26 is scheduled to undock from the Station on April 20, whereupon Expedition 72 will come to a close, and Expedition 73 will begin.
Soyuz MS-27 crewmembers from left to right: Jonny Kim, Sergey Ryzhikov, and Alexey Zubritsky. (Credit: Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center)
Soyuz MS-27 is commanded by Sergey Ryzhikov, a spaceflight veteran making his third flight to space. Born in August 1974 in Bugulma, Tatarstan, Ryzhikov is a graduate of the Kachinsky Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots and a lieutenant colonel in the Russian Air Force. Ryzhikov has earned over 700 flight hours on aircraft like the L-39 Albatros and MiG-29 Fulcrum, as well as 350 parachute jumps.
Ryzhikov was selected by Roscosmos as a cosmonaut in October 2006 and finished his training in June 2009. He trained alongside European Space Agency (ESA) astronauts Tim Peake and Thomas Pesquet, along with Japan’s Norishige Kanai and NASA’s Randolph Bresnik, during the ESA CAVES mission in Sardinia in 2011.
Ryzhikov’s first spaceflight was Soyuz MS-02, which launched on Oct. 19, 2016. He spent 173 days aboard ISS during Expedition 49 and Expedition 50 and returned to Earth on April 10, 2017. His second flight, Soyuz MS-17, launched to the Station on Oct. 14, 2020, joining the Expedition 63 crew. Ryzhikov later commanded the ISS during Expedition 64 and conducted a spacewalk during his 185-day stay in orbit.
Cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov outside of the ISS during Russian EVA-47 on Nov. 18, 2020. (Credit: Roscosmos/Sergey Kud-Sverchkov)
Fellow Roscosmos crew member Alexey Zubritsky, born in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast of Ukraine in August 1992, is one of two flight engineers on Soyuz MS-27. Zubritsky, a senior lieutenant in the Russian Air Force, was selected as a cosmonaut in 2018. He is a graduate of the Ivan Kozhedub National University of the Air Force and is making his first spaceflight.
Joining Ryzhikov and Zubritsky is NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, serving as the mission’s second flight engineer. Born in Los Angeles, California, in February 1984, Kim enlisted in the U.S. Navy after graduating from high school in 2002. He became a Navy SEAL after his initial training.
Kim served on SEAL Team 3 and saw combat in the Middle East, earning a Silver Star and other awards, before earning a commission as an officer in 2012. Later, he became an aeromedical dual-designated flight surgeon and naval aviator. Currently a lieutenant commander in the Navy, Kim was selected as part of the 2017 NASA Group 22 astronaut class, known as the “Turtles,” and served as a capsule communicator (CAPCOM) in Mission Control starting in 2020.
Astronaut Jonny Kim photographed in an EVA suit. (Credit: NASA)
Kim has also served as an operations officer for the ISS program and was selected as one of 17 astronauts on the first “Artemis Team” to train for the first crewed missions of the Artemis program.
Kim holds a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in mathematics from the University of San Diego and a Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard Medical School. Married with three children, he also completed a medical internship at two hospitals in Boston and earned a Pat Tillman Foundation’s Tillman Scholar selection.
Soyuz MS-27 is scheduled to spend eight months docked to the Russian segment of the ISS, with its return to Earth scheduled for Dec. 8. During the crew’s time in orbit, they will conduct experiments and maintenance work on the Station’s systems. At least one EVA is still planned this year for the U.S. segment of the Station, and Jonny Kim is trained on EVA operations.
The Soyuz MS-27 crew was originally assigned as the Soyuz MS-26 backup crew. Typically, backup crews for one mission become the primary crew for the next Soyuz flight, though there have been crew changes in the past due to illness or other factors.
The crew of Expedition 73, comprised of members of Soyuz MS-27 and Crew-10. (Credit: NASA)
The backup crew for Soyuz MS-27 is veteran commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, flight engineer Sergey Mikayev, and flight engineer Christopher Williams of NASA. They have been named as the prime crew for Soyuz MS-28, scheduled to launch no earlier than Nov. 27. Once the handover between the two crews is complete, Expedition 73 will end with Soyuz MS-27’s undocking on Dec. 8, and Expedition 74 will officially start.
The Soyuz MS-27 launch will be the second Soyuz 2.1a rocket launch of 2025 and the first of two Soyuz crewed flights from Baikonur this year.
(The Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft and rocket being raised onto the launch pad at Baikonur. Credit: NASA)
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