At the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, Expedition 48-49 crewmember Kate Rubins of NASA (third from left, standing) admires a tree she planted in her name in traditional pre-launch activities June 30 as her crewmates surround her. They include Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (crouching), and backup crewmembers Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency (standing, left), Peggy Whitson of NASA (standing, second from the left), and Oleg Novitskiy (standing, second from the right) and prime crewmember Anatoly Ivanishin (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