[1] It transported two members of the Expedition 52 crew to the International Space Station.The crew consisted of a Russian commander and an American flight engineer.It was the first of the Soyuz MS series to rendezvous with the Station in approximately 6 hours, instead of the 2 day orbital rendezvous used for the previous launches.[5] Originally set to include 3 people, the crew assignments were changed in November 2016 by NASA and Roscosmos.Alexander Misurkin and Mark T. Vande Hei were reassigned to Soyuz MS-06 and served as part of Expedition 53/54,[6] Nikolai Tikhonov was reassigned to Soyuz MS-10 to serve as part of Expedition 57/58 although was also pulled of that mission due to the same budget cuts.