Expedition 48-49 Crew Meets Officials and Reporters as Launch Approaches

At their Cosmonaut Hotel crew quarters in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, 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) appeared before the Russian State Commission. The commission gave its final approval for the launch of Ivanishin, Rubins and Onishi to the International Sp