Expedition 29 was the 29th long-duration expedition to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

(ISS). The expedition formally began on 16 September 2011, with the departure from the ISS of the

Soyuz TMA-21 Soyuz TMA-21 ("Gagarin") was a Soyuz spacecraft, Soyuz flight to the International Space Station (ISS). It transported three members of the Expedition 27 crew to the ISS, and docked at the station on April 6, 2011. TMA-21 is the 109th flight of ...

spacecraft. Astronauts

Satoshi Furukawa is a Japanese surgeon and JAXA astronaut. Furukawa was assigned to the International Space Station as a flight engineer on long-duration missions Expedition 28/ 29, lifting off 7 June 2011 and returning 22 November 2011. Medical career Furakawa ...

Michael Fossum Michael Edward Fossum (born December 19, 1957, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota) is a former American astronaut, engineer, and thChief Operating Officer of Texas A&M University at Galveston He flew into space on board the NASA Space Shuttle missions ST ...

and Sergey Volkov, who had arrived at the ISS aboard

Soyuz TMA-02M Soyuz TMA-02M was a space mission that transported three members of the Expedition 28 crew to the International Space Station. TMA-02M was the 110th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft (first launched 1967) and the second flight of the improved Soyuz ...

in June 2011, began their Expedition 29 service at this time.

Soyuz TMA-22 Soyuz TMA-22 was a crewed spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS). TMA-22 was the 111th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft, and transported three members of the Expedition 29 crew to the ISS. The spacecraft docked to the ISS on 16 Novembe ...

, which brought the remaining three Expedition 29 crew members to the ISS, was originally scheduled to launch in September 2011, but due to the launch failure of the Progress M-12M resupply vehicle on 24 August, its launch was delayed to 14 November. It docked successfully with the ISS on 16 November 2011. Expedition 29 officially ended with the undocking of Soyuz TMA-02M on 21 November 2011. Furukawa, Fossum, and Volkov returned to Earth aboard the spacecraft, while astronauts

Dan Burbank Daniel Christopher Burbank (born July 27, 1961) is a retired American astronaut and a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions. Burbank, a Captain in the United States Coast Guard, is the second Coast Guard astronaut after Bruce Melnick. Early ...

Anton Shkaplerov Anton Nikolaevich Shkaplerov (russian: Антон Николаевич Шкаплеров; born 20 February 1972) is a Russian cosmonaut. He is a veteran of four spaceflights. Personal life Shkaplerov is married to Tatyana Petrovna, and they ...

, and

Anatoli Ivanishin Anatoli Alekseyevich Ivanishin (russian: link=no, Анатолий Алексеевич Иванишин; born 15 January 1969) is a former Russian cosmonaut. His first visit to space was to the International Space Station on board the Soyuz TMA ...

remained on the ISS as part of

Expedition 30 Expedition 30 was the 30th long-duration mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The expedition's first three crew members – Dan Burbank, Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoli Ivanishin – arrived on the ISS aboard Soyuz TMA-22 on 16 ...

Crew

;Source: NASA

Mission highlights

Soyuz TMA-02M launch

The expedition's first three crew members launched aboard

from

Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome ( kk, Байқоңыр ғарыш айлағы, translit=Baiqoñyr ğaryş ailağy, ; russian: Космодром Байконур, translit=Kosmodrom Baykonur, ) is a spaceport in an area of southern Kazakhstan leased to R ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

, at 21:18 UTC on 7 June 2011. The crew consisted of Sergey Volkov (

Roscosmos The State Space Corporation "Roscosmos" (russian: Государственная корпорация по космической деятельности «Роскосмос»), commonly known simply as Roscosmos (russian: Роскосмос) ...

), Satoshi Furukawa (

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orb ...

), and Michael Fossum (

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

). Their backups were

Oleg Kononenko Oleg Dmitriyevich Kononenko (russian: Олег Дмитриевич Кононенко; ; born 21 June 1964 in Turkmenistan) is a Russian cosmonaut from the Turkmen SSR. He has flown to the International Space Station four times, as a flight eng ...

(Roscosmos),

Donald Pettit Donald Roy Pettit (born April 20, 1955) is an American astronaut and chemical engineer. He is a veteran of two long-duration stays aboard the International Space Station, one Space Shuttle mission and a six-week expedition to find meteorites in ...

(NASA), and

André Kuipers André Kuipers (; born 5 October 1958) is a Dutch physician and ESA astronaut. He became the second Dutch citizen, third Dutch-born and fifth Dutch-speaking astronaut upon launch of Soyuz TMA-4 on 19 April 2004. Kuipers returned to Earth abo ...

(ESA). Soyuz TMA-02M docked successfully to the ISS on 9 June 2011, at 5:19 pm EDT.

Soyuz TMA-22 launch

launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome at 04:14 UTC on 14 November 2011, carrying Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoli Ivanishin (Roscosmos), and Daniel Burbank (NASA). The spacecraft was placed into a parking orbit, and docked successfully with the ISS at 5:24 am GMT on 16 November 2011."Russian, U.S. crew safely dock with space station"

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

, 16 November 2011.

Departure of Soyuz TMA-02M

Expedition 29 concluded with the departure of Soyuz TMA-02M from the ISS at 11:00 pm

GMT Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a cons ...

on 21 November 2011, carrying astronauts Fossum, Volkov and Furukawa. The spacecraft soft-landed safely (albeit on its side) in

at 2:26 am GMT on 22 November."3 Space Station Astronauts Land Safely in Kazakhstan"
Space.com, 21 November 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-22.

References

External links

{{Use British English, date=August 2010 2011 in spaceflight Expeditions to the International Space Station