At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 44/45 backup crewmembers Timothy Peake of the European Space Agency (left), Yuri Malenchenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, center) and Timothy Kopra of NASA (right) pose for pictures in front of a Soyuz spacecraft simulator May 6 as part of their final qualification exams for flight. They are the backups to the prime crew --- Kjell Lindgren of NASA, Oleg Kononenko of Roscosmos and Kimya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency --- who are in the final stages of training for launch May 27, Kazakh time, in the Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft to begin a five and a half month mission to the International Space Station.
NASA/Seth Marcantel
2015-05-06
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