Expedition 31 Crew Prepares For Launch

Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Joe Acaba, seated left, Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka, and, Flight Engineer Sergei Revin, seated right, pose for a picture with their backup crew members Kevin Ford, standing left, Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin, standing right, just a few hours before their launch onboard the Soyuz TMA-04M on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz spacecraft with Padalka, Revin, and Acaba onboard, launched at 9:01 a.m. Kazakhstan time on Tuesday, May 15. Photo Credit: (NASA/GCTC/Andrey Shelepin)