Raising of the flags

Ceremony of the raising of the flags on 5 December 2010 at the hotel Cosmos, the crew isolation facility in Baikonur. The flag of the host country, Kazakhstan, is raised along with the national flags of the prime crew members. This is done once and represents the beginning of the final stage of the launch campaign. The American flag is raised by Cady Coleman and Mike Fossum, the Russian flag is raised by Dmitry Kondratyev and Anatoly Ivanshin, the Italian flag is raised by Paolo Nespoli and the Kazakh flag is raised by Satoshi Furukawa.

Paolo Nespoli, ESA's Italian astronaut, will travel to the International Space Station (ISS) on 15 December for a long-duration mission called MagISStra and serve as flight engineer for Expeditions 26 and 27. This will be the third six-month mission by a European astronaut on the Station.