At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 48-49 backup crewmember Peggy Whitson of NASA flashes a smile in front of a Soyuz simulator May 26 during final qualification exams. Whitson, Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency and Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos are serving as the backups to prime crewmembers Kate Rubins of NASA, Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos, who will launch June 24 on the Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a four-month mission on the International Space Station...NASA/Stephanie Stoll.

2016-05-26