JSC2015E055883 (05/06/2015) — At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 44/45 backup Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, center) and his crewmates, Timothy Peake of the European Space Agency (left) and Timothy Kopra of NASA (right), prepare to sign in for the fi
JSC2015E055883 (05/06/2015) — At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 44/45 backup Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, center) and his crewmates, Timothy Peake of the European Space Agency (left) and Timothy Kopra of NASA (right), prepare to sign in for the first of two days of qualification exams. 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. Photo credit: NASA/Seth Marcantel