Oleg Ostapenko, General Director of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and Expedition 42/43 Terry Virts of NASA, Roscosmos commander Anton Shkaplerov and ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti at the launch pad in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on 23 November 2014.
On this mission, Samantha is flying as an ESA astronaut for Italy’s ASI space agency under a special agreement between ASI and NASA.