Published on December 4, 2017
The Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft and its booster were moved to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a railcar on December 19, 2011, for final preparations prior to launch to the International Space Station on December 21. The TMA-03M will carry Expedition 30 Soyuz Commander Oleg Kononenko, NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit and European Space Agency Flight Engineer Andre Kuipers to the complex. The trio will spend five months on the outpost, joining station Commander Dan Burbank of NASA and Russian Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin, who have been in orbit for just over a month.
