Next Space Station Residents Prepare for Launch

At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Soyuz MS-26 prime and backup crews completed final pre-flight training for the scheduled launch Sept. 11 of NASA’s Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner on the start of a planned six-month mission to the International Space Station. The training activities that took place August 26 to September 8, includes the rollout of the Soyuz 2.1a launch vehicle to its launch pad in Baikonur Sept. 8.