Expedition 43 Hands Over the Space Station to Expedition 44

The reins of the International Space Station were passed from NASA’s Terry Virts to Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) during a ceremony on the orbital outpost on June 10. Virts will return to Earth on June 11 in the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft with Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov and Flight Engineer Samantha Cristoforetti of ESA (European Space Agency) to wrap up more than six months in orbit. Padalka, who became the first four-time commander of the station, remains on board wi