jsc2014e089250

#3186 – (30 October 2014) --- At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 42/43 backup Soyuz Commander Oleg Kononenko of Roscosmos signs in for the first of two days of qualification exams October 30 as his crewmates, Kjell Lindgren of NASA (left) and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency look on. They are the backups to the prime crew --- Terry Virts of NASA, Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos and Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency --- who are in the final stages of training for launch November 24, Kazakh time, in the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft to begin a five and a half month mission on the International Space Station. Photo credit: NASA/Stephanie Stoll