12/05/2014 - The captain was officially qualified as backup crew (reserve crew) of the ISS 40 / 41 mission, departing from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at the end of May.

Training - conducted in recent days at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center of Star City, in Russia, together with colleagues Anton Shkaplerov of Russian Federal Space Agency and to Terry Virts of the NASA - represents a further stage of approach to the ISS 42 / 43 mission: the "Futura" mission. This is the second long-term mission of the ASI that, starting from November 2014, will see firsthand the Captain Cristoforetti as the first Italian woman to bring the Italian flag into orbit.

Source: SMD