Destined for the International Space Station (ISS), a Soyez TMA-1 spacecraft launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on April 26, 2003. Aboard are Expedition Seven crew members, cosmonaut Yuri I. Malenchenko, Expedition Seven mission commander, and Astronaut Edward T. Lu, Expedition Seven NASA ISS science officer and flight engineer. Expedition Six crew members returned to Earth aboard the Russian spacecraft after a 5 and 1/2 month stay aboard the ISS. Photo credit: NASA/Scott Andrews

Expedition Seven photographed the Soyez TMA-1 Capsule through a window of the International Space Station (ISS) as it departed for Earth. Aboard were Expedition Six crew members, astronauts Kerneth D. Bowersox and Donald R. Pettit, and cosmonaut Nikolai M. Budarin. Expedition Six served a 5 and 1/2 month stay aboard the ISS, the longest stay to date.

Astronaut Shannon Lucid is seen egressing from a training version of a soyez spacecraft, during a water survival training session in Russia. In March of 1996, Lucid accompanied the STS-76 crew to the Russian space station, Mir, where she stayed for a little over four months before returning to Earth with the STS-79 crew.

This artist's concept depicts the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) with insets of photographs of three U.S. astronauts (Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand, and Donald Slayton) and two U.S.S.R. cosmonauts (Alexei Leonov and Valeri Kubasov). The objective of the ASTP mission was to accomplish the first docking of a standardized international system, the U.S.'s Apollo spacecraft and the U.S.S.R.'s Soyuz spacecraft, in space. The Soyuz spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam in the Kazakh, Soviet Socialist Republic, at 8:20 a.m. (EDT) on July 15, 1975. The Apollo spacecraft was launched from Launch Complex 39B, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at 3:50 p.m. (EDT) on July 15, 1975. The Primary objectives of the ASTP were achieved. They performed spacecraft rendezvous, docking and undocking, conducted intervehicular crew transfer, and demonstrated the interaction of U.S. and U.S.S.R. control centers and spacecraft crews. The mission marked the last use of a Saturn launch vehicle. The Marshall Space Flight Center was responsible for development and sustaining engineering of the Saturn IB launch vehicle during the mission.

This crew portrait of Expedition Seven, Cosmonaut Yuri I. Malenchenko, Expedition Seven mission commander (left), and Astronaut Edward T. Lu, Expedition Seven NASA ISS science officer and flight engineer (right) was taken while in training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia. Destined for the International Space Station (ISS), the two-man crew launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on April 26, 2003. aboard a Soyez TMA-1 spacecraft.