Space officials confirmed on Friday the line-up of a new mission to the International Space Station (ISS) ahead of their launch next month.

Three Expedition 32 crew members - NASA astronaut Suni Williams, cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko and Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide - are scheduled to launch aboard the Soyuz TMA-05M from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan on July 15, said a spokesman for the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside Moscow.

The trio has been passing tests at the facility.

They will join Expedition 31's NASA astrounaut Joe Acaba and cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin on board the orbiting outpost.

Meanwhile, fellow Expedition 31 members cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and NASA's Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers are preparing for their July 1 return to Earth.

A back-up ISS crew was also confirmed on Friday. It includes Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and cosmonaut Roman Romanenko.

Source: RIA Novosti