Soyuz MS-09 crew, Alexander Gerst, Serena M. Auñón-Chancellor, and Sergey Prokopyev, since June 2018 aboard the ISS, were expected to be joined by Aleksey Ovchinin and Nick Hague in October 2018.

[5] On 23 October 2018, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that Soyuz flights to the ISS were expected to resume in December 2018.

[6] The Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft commanded by cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, carrying him and two flight engineers, Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques, was launched on December 3, 2018, marking the 100th orbital launch of the year;[7] the Expedition 57 initial crew departed on December 20 and Expedition 58 started as a three-person increment.

[8][9] Originally NASA Astronaut Jeanette Epps was assigned as flight engineer for Expeditions 56 and 57, becoming the first African American space station crew member[12] and the 15th African American to fly in space, but on January 16, 2018, NASA announced that Epps had been replaced by her backup Serena M.

"[14][15][16] Cosmonaut Nikolai Tikhonov was slated to make his first spaceflight on the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft, but was removed from the crew due to delays in launching the Russian Nauka module.