At the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, Expedition 48-49 crewmember Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (left) lends a hand to NASA���s Kate Rubins (crouching) as she plants a tree in her name June 30 in traditional pre-launch activities. Standing from left to right are backup crewmembers Peggy Whitson of NASA, Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency and Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and prime crewmember Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos. Rubins, Ivanishin and Onishi will launch July 7, Baikonur time, on the Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft for a planned four-month mission on the International Space Station...NASA/Alexander Vysotsky.

2016-06-30