At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 46-47 backup crewmembers Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, left) and Kate Rubins of NASA prepare to enter a Soyuz simulator Nov. 19 at the start of qualification exams. Along with Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, they are the backups to the prime crewmembers, Yuri Malenchenko of Roscosmos, Tim Kopra of NASA and Tim Peake of the European Space Agency, who will launch Dec. 15 in the Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a six-month mission on the International Space Station..NASA/Seth Marcantel

2015-11-19