Outside their Cosmonaut Hotel crew quarters in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, Expedition 48-49 backup crewmembers Peggy Whitson of NASA (left), Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos (center) and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency (right) listen to remarks June 26 during the traditional raising of the American, Russian, Japanese and Kazakh flags. Prime crewmembers Kate Rubins of NASA, Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will launch on July 7, Baikonur time, on the Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft for a planned four-month mission on the International Space Station...NASA/Alexander Vysotsky.

2016-06-26