Expedition 29

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. 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. 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.

Crew

 * Source: ISS029-E-5306 - View of Earth.jpg

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 250 km parking orbit, and docked successfully with the ISS at 5:24 am GMT on 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.