With the statue of Vladimir Lenin serving as a backdrop at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, a throng of well-wishers says goodbye to the Expedition 39/40 prime and backup crew members March 13 after they boarded a bus to go a nearby airfield for the flight to their launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
JSC2014-E-025855 (13 March 2014) — With the statue of Vladimir Lenin serving as a backdrop at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, a throng of well-wishers says goodbye to the Expedition 39/40 prime and backup crew members March 13 after they boarded a bus to go a nearby airfield for the flight to their launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Prime crew members Steve Swanson of NASA, Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station March 26, Kazakh time, in the Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft for a six-month mission. Photo credit: NASA