NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, KF5LJG, and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryzanskiy are scheduled to launch aboard a Soyuz spacecraft September 25 to join their Expedition 37 crewmates aboard the International Space Station. Hopkins will be the first member of the 2009 NASA astronaut class to fly into space. While he’s aboard the ISS, Hopkins will install the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Ham Video gear. He received pre-flight training on how to commission the Amateur Radio digital video equipment.

Hopkins will join Expedition 37 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, RN3FI, and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg, and Luca Parmitano, KF5KDP. Yurchikhin, Nyberg, and Parmitano arrived in May and will return to Earth in November.