WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Expedition 54-55 prime and backup crewmembers pose for pictures Dec. 13 in front of the cottage where Yuri Gagarin slept on the night before his launch April 12, 1961 to become the first human to fly in space. From left to right are backup crewmembers Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency, Sergey Prokopyev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Jeanette Epps of NASA, and prime crewmembers Scott Tingle of NASA, Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos and Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Tingle, Kanai and Shkaplerov will launch Dec. 17 on the Soyuz MS-07 spacecraft for a five month mission on the International Space Station