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>> Okay.
[ Speaking foreign language ]
Today at our press conference,
Pavel Vladimirovich Vinogradov will be participating.
He will be the commander.
Our flight engineer for Crew 35 and flight engineer for Crew 36,
Mr. Aleksandr Misurkin, from [inaudible]
and Christopher Cassidy, flight engineer too, for Soyuz
and flight engineer for the ISS from NASA.
The following crew will be Oleg Kotov, he'll be the commander
of the Soyuz from Roscosmos, Russia.
Sergey Ryazanskiy flight engineer, for Soyuz
and flight engineer for the ISS, Roscosmos cosmonaut,
Michael Hopkins, flight engineer for NASA.
>> ...finished your qualification exams
for the first ever four orbit rendezvous, single day launch
to docking to the space station.
Can you talk about some of the examinations you did this week
and what you're looking forward to coming up?
>> Well in addition to the typical two days,
one day in a Russian segment and the normal Soyuz exam,
we added the short program for the rendezvous qualifications.
And although it's a very new program,
for our actions inside the crew, it's very similar
to what we're used to doing.
All of the sequence of events that we do are the same,
just without a break of one day in between.
The space center here has done a tremendous job to prepare us
for this new rendezvous approach and the [inaudible] are all
in great shape and we as a crew feel very prepared and ready
for this exciting new day.
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[ Speaking foreign language ]
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>> Today we're here at Red Square and the Kremlin,
a few weeks before you head to Baikonur and go to the,
for your launch to the International Space Station.
Can you tell us what you're doing here at the Kremlin today?
And maybe compare it to what it was like for you
to do this a backup crew member
and now you're here for your mission.
>> Right. It's really exciting, actually,
to be here for my own launch.
When I was here backing up Kevin Ford, who is soon to come home
from the space station, it was interesting
to see the whole process, almost as an observer.
I knew I was part of the crew in the backup crew,
but when you're here and it's here for your own launch,
and I know that I'm inside of three weeks from launch,
it brings a whole special feeling to going
through this process and sort of the historical moments
of laying the flowers down in front of Gagarin
and Korlos [assumed spelling], the stones there and then
as we walk through the Kremlin, the significance of where we are
and the history that's here and the space fliers prior to me
that have gone through this same exact process is really a neat,
a neat experience.
The whole thing is pretty fantastic from the get go.
>> And this is going to be your first launch in a Soyuz,
and the last time you prepared for a flight you were
down in Florida getting ready for STS-127,
and this is a lot different than that.
>> Right, exactly.
July in Florida is quite significantly different
than March in Russia.
But you know, part of the thing about going
to space is who you fly with.
And I really enjoyed my crew mates on STS-127.
On a shuttle mission, there's more crew mates.
On a Soyuz, I really enjoy becoming close buddies
with Pablo and Sache and knowing their families
and being a tightknit crew and even though it's fewer people
on a Soyuz than a shuttle, it's the same camaraderie feeling
that you have as you remember the team that's
about to go do something really special.