The Soyuz craft remains the only means for international astronauts to reach the space station since the decommissioning of the U.S. Shuttle fleet in 2011. Russia's Roscosmos space agency spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov said launch pad 31 had recently been renovated and already been used for an unmanned mission over the summer. Now we need to do similar things at Site No. As soon as that is finished, it will be in a condition to resume launches," he said. Site No. 1, better known as Gagarin's Start in recognition of the historic 1961 mission, was last overhauled in 1983. The need for a back-up launch site became particularly acute with the decommissioning of the U.S. shuttle fleet, when Gagarin's Start became the only operating pad available for manned launches to the space station. They'll be really prepared. Their training has been excellent," said William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, speaking at launch pad 31. "They have got time to learn on station, so if there are some little rough spots as they get started, they'll be able to accomplish their tasks," he said. In August, a Russian booster rocket failed to place two communications satellites into target orbits, stranding the Russian Express MD-2 and Indonesia's Telkom-3 satellites in a low orbit where they could not be recovered. A Russian robotic probe designed to study a moon of Mars got stranded in Earth's orbit after its launch in November and eventually came crashing down in January. Gerstenmaier said the Russian space agency treated crewed programs differently from other launches. "The hardware that's chosen for this rocket is better quality hardware than they would use for a satellite or for a different launch because of the criticality of what they're doing," he said.