JSC2015E055885 (05/06/2015) — At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 44/45 backup Flight Engineer Timothy Peake of the European Space Agency signs in for the first of two days of qualification exams May 6 as his crewmates, Yuri Malenchenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, center) and Timo
JSC2015E055885 (05/06/2015) — At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 44/45 backup Flight Engineer Timothy Peake of the European Space Agency signs in for the first of two days of qualification exams May 6 as his crewmates, Yuri Malenchenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, center) and Timothy Kopra of NASA (right) look on. 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