jsc2016e107486

At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 49-50 backup crewmembers Mark Vande Hei of NASA (left) and Alexander Misurkin (center) and Nikolai Tikhonov (right) of Roscosmos answer reporters’ questions Aug. 30 at the start of final qualification exams. They are serving as backups to prime crewmembers Shane Kimbrough of NASA and Andrey Borisenko and Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos who will launch on Sept. 24 (Kazakh time) on their Soyuz MS-02 vehicle from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a five-month mission on the International Space Station. NASA/Stephanie Stoll