Expedition 29 was the 29th long-duration expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). The expedition formally began on 16 September 2011, with the departure from the ISS of the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft."Soyuz TMA-21 returns to Earth". NASA, 15 September 2011. Retrieved 24 October 2011. Astronauts Satoshi Furukawa, Michael Fossum and Sergey Volkov, who had arrived at the ISS aboard Soyuz TMA-02M in June 2011, began their Expedition 29 service at this time.
Soyuz TMA-22, 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."Russian Space Agency names next crew to ISS" . Xinhua, 24 October 2011. 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, Anton Shkaplerov, and Anatoli Ivanishin remained on the ISS as part of Expedition 30."Expedition 30". NASA. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
Crew PositionFirst part(September 2011 to November 2011)Second part(November 2011)Commander Mike Fossum, NASAThird and last spaceflightFlight Engineer 1 Satoshi Furukawa, JAXAFirst spaceflightFlight Engineer 2 Sergei Volkov, RSASecond spaceflightFlight Engineer 3 Anton Shkaplerov, RSAFirst spaceflightFlight Engineer 4 Anatoli Ivanishin, RSAFirst spaceflightFlight Engineer 5 Daniel Burbank, NASAThird and last spaceflight
Source NASAJAXA announcement of Furukawa assignment, 17 December 2008 (in Japanese). Retrieved 20 October 2011.
Mission highlights
Soyuz TMA-02M launch The expedition's first three crew members launched aboard Soyuz TMA-02M from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, at 21:18 UTC on 7 June 2011. The crew consisted of Sergey Volkov (Roscosmos), Satoshi Furukawa (JAXA), and Michael Fossum (NASA). Their backups were Oleg Kononenko (Roscosmos), Donald Pettit (NASA), and André Kuipers (ESA). Soyuz TMA-02M docked successfully to the ISS on 9 June 2011, at 5:19 pm EDT.
Soyuz TMA-22 launch Soyuz TMA-22 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,"Soyuz TMA-22 manned transportation spacecraft launched towards ISS". SpaceDaily, 15 November 2011. 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, 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 on 21 November 2011, carrying astronauts Fossum, Volkov and Furukawa. The spacecraft soft-landed safely (albeit on its side) in Kazakhstan at 2:26 am GMT on 22 November."3 Space Station Astronauts Land Safely in Kazakhstan". Space.com, 21 November 2011. Retrieved 22 November 2011.
References
External links
NASA's Space Station Expeditions page Expedition 29 Photography