At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 41/42 Flight Engineer Elena Serova of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, front row, right) signs a welcome book at the Gagarin Museum Sept. 5 in a traditional ceremony as her crewmates, Soyuz Commander Alexander Samokutyaev of Roscosmos (front row, center) and NASA’s Barry Wilmore (front row, left) look on. In the back row are their backups, NASA’s Scott Kelly (back row, left), Gennady Padalka of Roscosmos (back row, center) and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos (back row, right). Wilmore, Samokutyaev and Serova will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sept. 26, Kazakh time, in their Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft for a 5 ½ month mission on the International Space Station. Serova will become the fourth Russian woman to fly in space and the first Russian woman to conduct a long duration mission on the station. Kelly and Kornienko will launch in March 2015 to spend a full year on the complex.
NASA/Stephanie Stoll