Expedition 39/40 Flight Engineer Steve Swanson before boarding a plane for the flight.

With the statue of Vladimir Lenin serving as a backdrop at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 39/40 Flight Engineer Steve Swanson of NASA (third from left), Soyuz Commander Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, fourth from left) and Flight Engineer Oleg Artemyev (far right) field questions from reporters March 13 before boarding a plane for the flight to their launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Looking on are backup crewmembers Alexander Samokutyaev of Roscosmos (far left) and Elena Serova (second from left). Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev will launch to the International Space Station March 26, Kazakh time , in the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft for a six-month mission.

NASA/Stephanie Stoll