At the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, Expedition 48-49 crewmember Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (second from the right) helps to plant a tree in his name in traditional pre-launch activities June 30 with the assistance of prime crewmates Kate Rubins of NASA (far right) and Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos (left with water bucket). Looking on are backup crewmembers Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency (standing, left), Peggy Whitson of NASA (standing, center) and Oleg Novitskiy (partially obscured, right). 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