jsc2016e109736

At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 49 backup crewmembers Alexander Misurkin (far right) and Nikolai Tikhonov (second from right) of Roscosmos and Mark Vande Hei of NASA (third from right) say goodbye to well-wishers Sept. 8 before boarding busses that took them and prime crewmembers Shane Kimbrough of NASA and Andrey Borisenko and Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos to nearby Chkalovsky Airfield and a flight to the launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Kimbrough, Ryzhikov and Borisenko will launch on Sept. 24, Kazakh time on the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft for a five-month mission on the International Space Station. NASA/Stephanie Stoll