Expedition 42/43 crew member Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency greets guests.
At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 42/43 crew member Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency greets guests of Expedition 44/45 crewmember Oleg Kononenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, left) during a departure ceremony July 10 for Kononenko and his crewmates, who flew to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for final pre-launch training. Cristoforetti returned to Earth in June after 6 ½ months on the International Space Station. Kononenko, Kjell Lindgren of NASA and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will launch on their Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft July 23 from Baikonur for a five-month mission on the International Space Station.