In 2013, he began training at the Gagarin Space Center and was assigned as backup Flight Engineer for Expedition 42/43 which launched on Soyuz TMA-15M. He was later assigned to Expedition 44/45 as a flight engineer. On 22 July 2015 Lindgren launched on his first mission to the ISS alongside Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui onboard Soyuz TMA-17M. Six hours later the trio docked to the ISS, officially joining Expedition 44 alongside Soyuz TMA-16M crewmembers Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos and Scott Kelly of NASA. In November 2015, while on the ISS, Kjell played a set of bagpipes manufactured by McCallum Bagpipes Ltd as a memorial to Victor Hurst, who died in October of that year. McCallum Bagpipes was chosen to manufacture the bagpipes because they make them in plastic, which is easily sanitized and transported, ideal for space exploration. This is thought to be the first time the Great Highland bagpipes have been played in space.