Outside their Cosmonaut Hotel crew quarters in Baikonur Kazakhstan to begin a 5 ½ month mission on the International Space Station.

Outside their Cosmonaut Hotel crew quarters in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, the Expedition 36/37 prime and backup crewmembers conducted the traditional raising of flags of their countries and host country Kazakhstan May 18 as they prepare for the launch of NASA Flight Engineer Karen Nyberg, Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency May 29, Kazakh time, in the Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft to begin a 5 ½ month mission on the International Space Station. Hoisting the flags of Russia, the U.S., Italy and Kazakhstan from left to right are Yurchikhin, backup Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin, Nyberg, backup NASA Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio, Parmitano and backup Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

NASA/Victor Zelentsov