The next U.S.-Russian crew for the international space station say they are fully ready for their mission even though they initially flunked one of their tests.
NASA astronauts Doug Wheelock and Shannon Walker and their Russian commander cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin told reporters Monday that they passed their exams successfully. They will blast off for the orbiting outpost in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on June 16 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Yurchikhin said they had to take an engineering test twice after a failure, but added that the problem demonstrated the crew's team spirit.
The trio will join Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko and U.S. astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson.
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