Terry and Samantha at the Tsukuba Space Center

ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti (center) and NASA astronaut Terry Virts during training at JAXA’s Tsukuba Space Center (TKSC), Japan, on 3 March 2014.

As part of the International Space Station project, the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Kibo was developed and tested at TKSC. At Tsukuba the astronauts training covers experiments which take place inside the JEM.

Samantha Cristoforetti is assigned to fly on the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft to the International Space Station, scheduled for November 2014 and as part of Expedition 42/43.