On the Expedition 29 patch, the International Space Station (ISS) is shown following the path of the 18th century explorer, Captain James Cook, and his ship, Endeavour. During Cook's three main voyages, he explored and mapped major portions of the oceans and coastlines, and contributed enormously to the body of knowledge of that time. As the ISS sails a stardust trail – following the spirit of Endeavour sailing toward the dark unknown and new discoveries – it enlightens Earth below.
Credit: NASA/Crew of Expedition 29
On the morning of 22 November 2011, a Russian Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft, carrying onboard astronauts Mike Fossum, Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov, landed safely in Kazakhstan, concluding a five-and-a-half-month mission to the International Space Station (ISS), Earth’s largest artificial satellite, which orbits about 350 km above ground.
The three spacemen were crewmembers of International Space Station Expedition 29. Fossum was the commander of Expedition 29, while both Volkov and Satoshi served as flight engineers. They arrived at the ISS on 9 June 2011, aboard the Soyuz TMA-02M, participating in the Expedition 28 crew as flight engineers. Expedition 29 started when Fossum took command, and Expedition 28 Commander Andrey Borisenko and Flight Engineers Ron Garan and Alexander Samokutyaev departed the ISS, in September. Fossum, Furukawa and Volkov spent 165 days aboard the orbiting outpost, totaling 167 days in orbit.
The ISS is now occupied by Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank and Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin. Three more flight engineers, NASA astronaut Don Pettit, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers, are assigned to launch to the ISS, to join Expedition 30, in December. They will fly aboard the Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
References
NASA
www.nasa.gov/
Wikipedia