Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency during a Soyuz TMA spacecraft training session at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia, on 28 August 2013.

Each crew members needs to be capable of reacting correctly and expeditiously to emergency situations. These situations are rehearsed over and over again during the training and include crew responses to fire, depressurisation and to toxic atmosphere.

Alexander Gerst is flight engineer for Expedition 40/41, which will be launched to the Station in May 2014 on a long-duration mission to run science experiments and maintain humankind’s space base.