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