Space in Images - 2018 - 05 - Customs crew

ESA Space in Images There is both a science and a tradition to spaceflight. All space farers journeying aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft perform a series of traditions following in the footsteps of the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin. Starting from their arrival at Baikonur about two weeks before launch, Soyuz astronauts rehearse their launch, inspect their spacecraft, and complete a series of traditions in honour of Gagarin. Today ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst and fellow Expedition 56/57 cosmonaut Sergei Prokopev and NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor completed their tree-planting ceremony. Behind the hotel buildings, leading to banks of the Syr Darya River, there is an avenue of trees. A tree is planted here by each person who has flown from the Baikonur cosmodrome into space. Crews walk in this avenue, now expanded into a park, and plant their own trees.