Epedition 11 Soyuz Transport

The Soyuz TMA-6 vehicle is placed on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Wednesday, April 13, 2005, as preparations continued for the April 15 launch to send Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev, Flight Engineer John Phillips and European Space Agency Astronaut Roberto Vittori, of Italy, to the International Space Station. Krikalev and Phillips will spend six months in space and greet the first Shuttle crew to fly in more than two years when it arrives at the station, while Vittori spends eight days on the station under a commercial contract between ESA and the Russian Federal Space Agency. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)