Soyuz TMA-03M was a spaceflight to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

(ISS). It launched on 21 December 2011 from Site One at the

Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome is a spaceport operated by Russia within Kazakhstan. Located in the Kazakh city of Baikonur, it is the largest operational space launch facility in terms of area. All Russian Human spaceflight, crewed spaceflights are l ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

, carrying three members of Expedition 30 to the ISS. TMA-03M was the 112th flight of a Russian

Soyuz spacecraft Soyuz () is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau (now Energia). The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraf ...

, since the first in 1967, and the third flight of the modernised Soyuz-TMA-M version. The docking with the International Space Station took place at 19:19

Moscow Time Moscow Time (MSK; ) is the time zone for the city of Moscow, Russia, and most of western Russia, including Saint Petersburg. It is the second-westernmost of the eleven time zones of Russia, after the non-continguous Kaliningrad enclave. It h ...

on 23 December, three minutes ahead of schedule.Состоялся запуск транспортного пилотируемого корабля «Союз ТМА-03М»

Roscosmos The State Corporation for Space Activities "Roscosmos", commonly known simply as Roscosmos (), is a State corporation (Russia), state corporation of the Russian Federation responsible for space science, space flights, List of space agencies, c ...

The crew were Oleg Kononenko (

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, commander), André Kuipers (

the Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

) and Donald Pettit (

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

). The Soyuz remained aboard the space station for the Expedition 30 increment to serve as an emergency escape vehicle if needed. The capsule used in the mission can be seen at the Space Expo visitors centre at the

European Space Research and Technology Centre The European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) is the European Space Agency's main technology development and test centre for spacecraft and space technology. It is situated in Noordwijk, South Holland, in the western Netherlands, alth ...

in Noordwijk, Netherlands.

Crew

Backup crew

Mission insignia

The Soyuz TMA-03M mission insignia (or 'patch') was designed by Luc van den Abeelen, partially based on artwork by 11-year-old Alena Gerasimova from

Petrozavodsk Petrozavodsk (, ; Karelian language, Karelian, Veps language, Vepsian and ) is the capital city of the Republic of Karelia, Russia, which stretches along the western shore of Lake Onega for some . The population of the city is 280,890 as of 2022. ...

, Russia. Former Roscosmos head

Anatoly Perminov Anatoly Nikolayevich Perminov (; born 16 June 1945) is a Russians, Russian aerospace engineering, rocket scientist and Mechanical engineering, mechanical engineer. He served as the List of heads of Roscosmos, General Director of Roscosmos, Russian ...

officially approved the patch on 9 March 2011. The Soyuz TMA-03M patch was the final patch based on the children's competition initiated for the

Soyuz TMA-14 The Soyuz TMA-14 (, ''Union TMA-14'') was a Soyuz programme, Soyuz flight to the International Space Station, which launched on 26 March 2009. It transported two members of the Expedition 19 crew as well as spaceflight participant Charles Simonyi ...

flight. The children's project had been organized by Roscosmos Public Relations and in mid-2011 the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center took over responsibility for the operational aspects of the Soyuz patches.

Mission details

The mission launched on 21 December 2011, at 17:16:15 Moscow time (13:16:15 GMT) using the

Soyuz-FG The Soyuz-FG was an improved variant of the Soyuz-U launch vehicle from the R-7 (rocket family), R-7 rocket family, developed by the Progress Rocket Space Centre in Samara, Russia. It featured upgraded first and second stage engines, RD-107A and ...

rocket system. After a 528-second flight, Soyuz ТМА-03М successfully disconnected from the third stage on a satellite orbit. Soyuz Commander Kononenko was launched from the Soyuz's center seat with flight engineer Donald Pettit strapped in to his right and ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers on his left. The launch occurred a little more than an hour after sunset at Baikonur in bitterly cold weather with temperatures near -18 degrees Celsius (0 F). Live television footage from inside the spacecraft's showed the crew members looking relaxed as they monitored the automated ascent. Shortly after the Soyuz slipped into a preliminary orbit, the Russian Mission Control said "Congratulations, guys, on a good insertion, (there are) no issues with telemetry or anything at all at this time, We wish you best of luck. You are experienced people, I'm sure everything is going to go very well". During the next two days after the launch, three major rendezvous burns were performed to put the spacecraft on a refined path to the ISS. File:Soyuz TMA-03M rollout 2.jpg, Rolling out to launch pad. File:Soyuz TMA-03M rocket.jpg, Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft seen at the launch pad on 19 December 2011. File:Soyuz_TMA-03M_crew_members_wave_farewell.jpg, Soyuz TMA-03M crew members wave farewell from the base of the rocket. File:Soyuz TMA-03M rocket launches 2 cropped.jpg, Soyuz TMA-03M lifts off from Baikonur on 21 December 2011.

Docking

Following the two-day rendezvous, the Soyuz spacecraft successfully docked to the Mini Research Module-1 (MRM-1) "Rassvet" Nadir docking port at 15:19 GMT on 23 December 2011. The port was vacated just over one month earlier by the Soyuz TMA-02M. The entire process of approaching and docking with the ISS went nominally as planned. After arriving in the vicinity of the ISS, the spacecraft made a short flyaround maneuver to achieve a perfect alignment with the Docking Port on the Rassvet Module. The station keeping started at a distance of 200 meters to the docking target. This gave teams inside the Russian Mission Control adequate time to evaluate systems and alignment. The final GO for approach came after just a few minutes and Soyuz Commander Kononenko sent the command for the final phase of the docking operation. The docking occurred three minutes ahead of previously announced time of 19:22:41 Moscow Time when the Soyuz TMA-03M gently came into contact with the ISS at a relative velocity of less than 0.3 m/s. At the time of docking, the two spacecraft were sailing 240 miles over southern Russia. Soft Docking was confirmed shortly thereafter and hooks and latches were closed 10 minutes after docking to form a hard-mate between space station and the Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft. Extensive leak checks and vehicle reconfigurations were made from both sides of the docking system before Mission Control gave a GO to open the hatches between the Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft and the ISS. Following the hatch opening, the crew members floated aboard the ISS to greet the already-aboard Dan Burbank, Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoli Ivanishin. Together, the two crews formed the full group of Expedition 30 until March 2012. File:Soyuz TMA-03M docking.jpg, Soyuz TMA-03M approaches the Rassvet module for docking. File:ISS-30 Soyuz TMA-03M and Progress M-13M.jpg, Soyuz TMA-03M docked to Rassvet and Progress M-13M docked to Pirs. File:ISS-32 Soyuz TMA-03M undocks from the Rassvet Mini-Research Module.jpg, Soyuz TMA-03M undocks from the Rassvet Mini-Research Module.

Return to Earth

Soyuz TMA-03M undocked from the ISS on 1 July 2012 at 4:47 AM (GMT), carrying Pettit, Kononenko and Kuipers, and landed safely near Zhezkazgan,

, at 8:14 AM the same day. The spacecraft's departure ended Expedition 31, and left astronauts

Gennady Padalka Gennady Ivanovich Padalka (; born 21 June 1958 in Krasnodar, Soviet Union) is a Russian Air Force officer and Roscosmos cosmonaut. Padalka is the only person to have served as commander of the International Space Station (ISS) four times. He previ ...

, Sergei Revin and Joseph Acaba aboard the station to begin Expedition 32. Soyuz TMA-03M capsule descends past helicopter (201207010008HQ).jpg, The Soyuz TMA-03M capsule descends past helicopter. Soyuz TMA-03M capsule lands.jpg, The Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft lands in central Kazakhstan. Soyuz TMA-03M capsule with Russian Search and Rescue crews.jpg, Russian Search and Rescue crews attach ladders and a slide for access to the capsule. Soyuz TMA-03M crew after landing.jpg, The Soyuz crew is pictured shortly after landing. Soyuz TMA-03M crew shortly after landing - cropped.jpg, Support and medical personnel carry the crew to the medical tent.

Spacecraft location

The Soyuz TMA-03M capsule is exhibited as a permanent display in Space Expo, the museum and visitor centre of the European Space Research and Technology Centre (

ESTEC The European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) is the European Space Agency's main technology development and test centre for spacecraft and space technology. It is situated in Noordwijk, South Holland, in the western Netherlands, alth ...

) in

Noordwijk Noordwijk () is a town and municipality in the west of the Netherlands, in the provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland. The municipality covers an area of of which is water and had a population of in . On 1 January 2019, the f ...

, Netherlands, which is the main technology complex of the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

. The capsule has been on dislay there since 19 September 2016, along with the spacesuit that André Kuipers wore for the mission.

References

External links

Videos of the launch and preparations

PromISSe official ESA web site
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Soyuz TMA-M03 Crewed Soyuz missions Spacecraft launched in 2011 Spacecraft which reentered in 2012 Spacecraft launched by Soyuz-FG rockets Fully civilian crewed orbital spaceflights