At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 46-47 backup crewmembers Kate Rubins of NASA (left), Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, center) and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (right) check in with Russian space officials Nov. 19 prior to their qualification exams. 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