Soyuz TMA-15M - prime + backup crew

Soyuz TMA-15M Baikonur Launch Cover — Signed by the Prime and Backup Crews

Rare Soyuz TMA-15M launch cover from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, hand-signed by all six members of the mission’s official prime and backup crews.

Prime crew:

• Anton Shkaplerov — Roscosmos, Soyuz Commander
• Terry Virts — NASA, Flight Engineer
• Samantha Cristoforetti — European Space Agency, Flight Engineer

Backup crew:

• Oleg Kononenko — Roscosmos, Soyuz Commander
• Kjell Lindgren — NASA, Flight Engineer
• Kimiya Yui — Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Flight Engineer

The two complete crews were formally approved at Baikonur immediately before launch, making this six-signature combination a particularly attractive record of the personnel selected and trained for the mission.

Soyuz TMA-15M lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 23 November 2014, carrying Shkaplerov, Virts and Cristoforetti to the International Space Station. Following a rapid six-hour rendezvous, the spacecraft docked with the orbiting laboratory, where the three astronauts joined the Expedition 42 crew.

The crew remained aboard the ISS through Expeditions 42 and 43. Terry Virts later assumed command of Expedition 43, while Samantha Cristoforetti conducted the Italian Space Agency–sponsored Futura mission, an extensive program of scientific and technological research in microgravity.

After approximately 199 days in space, Shkaplerov, Virts and Cristoforetti returned safely to Earth aboard Soyuz TMA-15M on 11 June 2015, landing in the steppe of Kazakhstan.

The backup crew was itself composed of three notable international spacefarers. Kononenko, Lindgren and Yui subsequently served together as the prime crew of Soyuz TMA-17M, adding further historical interest to their signatures on this earlier launch cover.

Signed by representatives of Roscosmos, NASA, ESA and JAXA, this outstanding cover brings together six astronauts and cosmonauts from four major space agencies. It is an impressive piece of Baikonur and International Space Station history and a rare opportunity to acquire the complete prime-and-backup crew combination on a single mission-related artifact.