Expedition 33 Prelaunch

Expedition 33 backup crew member, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, shakes hands with Expedition 33/34 Flight Engineer Kevin Ford onboard the crew bus, before Ford and fellow crew mates, Russian Cosmonaut and Soyuz Commander Oleg Novitskiy, and Russian Cosmonaut and Flight Engineer Evgeny Tarelkin, launch onboard a Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft to the International Space Station, Tuesday, October 23, 2012, in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Launch of the Soyuz rocket will send Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin on a five-month mission aboard the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/GCTC/Andrey Shelepin)