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In the background, the gantry arms begin to close around the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft to secure the rocket at the launch pad on March 23, 2014, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Launch of the Soyuz rocket is scheduled for March 26, Kazakh time, and will send Expedition 39 Soyuz Commander Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian Federal Space Agency, (Roscosmos), Flight Engineer Steven Swanson of NASA, and Flight Engineer Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos on a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station.