Expedition 28 Soyuz Commander Sergei Volkov, NASA Flight Engineer Mike Fossum and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa, along with backup crewmembers Don Pettit, Oleg Kononenko and Andre Kuipers, appeared before the Russian State Commission June 6, 2011 in Baikonur, Kazakhstan that gave its final approval for their launch, and conducted a final pre-launch news conference at their Cosmonaut Hotel crew quarters as they prepared for liftoff June 8, Baikonur time, in the Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft to begin a five and a half month mission on the International Space Station.
