On December 21, 2011 at 13:16 UTC the Russian "Soyuz TMA-03M” manned spacecraft with a new crew for the International Space Station (ISS) aboard was launched from Baykonur Cosmodrome. The spacecraft was orbited by the "Soyuz-FG” rocket-carrier.
The crew of the space vehicle consists of 3 members: Commander – Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko; Flight-engineer - European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers (the Netherlands); Flight-engineer - American astronaut Donald Pettit.
photo by Russian Cosmonaut Training Centre
The "Soyuz TMA-03M” crew will increase the ISS crew to six and will spend 147 days aboard the station. Pettit, Kononenko and Kuipers will join Expedition 30 crew: Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoliy Ivanishin and Daniel Burbank, who arrived at the station on November 13. Attachments: | 
