WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

At the Cosmonaut Hotel crew quarters in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, the Expedition 52-53 prime and backup crewmembers raised the flags of the U.S., Russia, Italy and Kazakhstan July 18 during traditional pre-launch ceremonies. From left to right are Sergey Ryazanskiy and Alexander Misurkin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) raising the Russian flag, Mark Vande Hei and Randy Bresnik of NASA raising the U.S. flag, Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency raising the flag of Italy and Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) raising the flag of Kazakhstan. Ryazanskiy, Bresnik and Nespoli will launch July 28 on the Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome for a five-month mission on the International Space Station.