Expedition 44/45 prime crew members

At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 44/45 prime crew members Kjell Lindgren of NASA (front, left), Oleg Kononenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, front center) and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (front right) walk toward the statue of Yuri Gagarin, the first human to fly in space, to lay flowers July 8 in a traditional ceremony. Behind them are the backup crew members and friends and family members. Lindgren, Kononenko and Yui will launch on their Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan July 23 for a five-month mission on the International Space Station. NASA/Seth Marcantel