Published on July 25, 2017
Expedition 48-49 Soyuz Commander Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Kate Rubins of NASA and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, along with their backups, Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos, Peggy Whitson of NASA and Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) participated in traditional ceremonies at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, outside Moscow June 24. Afterward, they departed for the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to complete their training for the launch of Ivanishin, Rubins and Onishi on the Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft for a four-month mission on the International Space Station.
