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Outside their Cosmonaut Hotel crew quarters in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, the Expedition 44 prime and backup crewmembers conducted the traditional raising of the Russian, U.S., Japanese and Kazakh flags July 12 as part of their pre-launch ceremonial activities. Prime crew members Kjell Lindgren of NASA, Oleg Kononenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (right) will launch July 23, Kazakh time from Baikonur in their Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft for a five-month mission on the International Space Station.