Retired Col. Tim Kopra last visited the ISS for a two-month stay in 2009, reaching the station aboard the space shuttle Endeavour and returning via Discovery. The upcoming launch will be Kopra’s first time aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. It will be his first mission since a broken leg forced him to miss a scheduled 2011 launch.
Kopra and fellow Expedition 46/47 crew members Yuri Malenchenko of Russia and Tim Peake of Great Britain arrived in Kazakhstan on Nov. 30 after training in Star City, Russia. They will be greeted aboard the ISS by another former U.S. military officer — retired Navy Capt. Scott Kelly, who began his one-year stay on the space station in March. official astronaut biography
NASA TV
