VIDEO: Expedition 42-43 mission preview

Two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. Navy test pilot will buckle into custom-molded seats inside a Soyuz spaceship Wednesday, undock from the International Space Station and head for a parachute-assisted landing in Kazakhstan to close out a 167-day space voyage.

Riding a specialized railroad car before dawn Friday, a Soyuz rocket rolled out of a cavernous assembly building and arrived at its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for liftoff Sunday with American, Russian and Italian crew members heading for the International Space Station.

Russia’s Progress M-26M cargo carrier lifted off Tuesday aboard a Soyuz rocket, climbed through clouds and into orbit, then executed an on-time radar-guided docking with the International Space Station six hours later. See photos of the supply ship’s launch.