Soyuz Launches for Holiday Hookup with the International Space Station

By Nancy Atkinson - December 21, 2011 at 3:06 PM UTC | Missions

A Soyuz rocket provided a little heat to frosty Kazakhstan, sending three new international crew members to the International Space Station. NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit, Russian Soyuz Commander Oleg Kononenko and European Space Agency Flight Engineer Andre Kuipers of the Netherlands launched aboard their Soyuz TMA-03M craft at 13:16 UTC on Dec. 21 (8:16 a.m. EST, 7:16 p.m. local time), from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Pettit, Kononenko and Kuipers are scheduled to dock to the Rassvet module of the station at about 13:22 UTC ( 8:22 a.m.) Friday, Dec. 23. They will receive a holiday welcome from station the crew already aboard, Commander Dan Burbank and Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin.

The combined crews of Expedition 30 will stay on board approximately six months; Burbank, Shkaplerov and Ivanishin are scheduled to return to Earth in March, and Pettit, Kononenko and Kuipers will return home in May.
One of the highlights of their expedition will be the arrival of a commercial cargo capsule built by Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX. The launch of the first commercial spacecraft to berth with the ISS is scheduled for Feb. 7, 2012.

The crew will also continue scientific research and the Russian crew will do spacewalk to continue external assembly and maintenance of the station.

During the next two days, the spacecraft will orbit Earth 35 times, performing three major engine burns as its orbit is adjusted for docking with ISS.

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com