ISS Expedition 31 patch, 2011

ESA astronaut André Kuipers (NL) is assigned to fly on Soyuz TMA-03M to the ISS, scheduled for the end of November 2011, as part of the Expedition 30 crew. Expedition 31 begins in March 2012. Joseph Acaba, Gennady Padalka and Konstantin Valkov will join Kuipers and the other members of Expedition 31 already on the ISS, Don Pettit and Oleg Kononenko.

The Expedition 31 was designed by Luc van den Abeelen of Spacepatches.nl working with the Expedition 31 crew. The figures 3 and 1 are represented in the gold-shaded limbs of Earth and the Moon, and part of the orbital patch of the ISS. The six stars represent the six astronauts on board. The Moon and Mars are seen to symbolise our continuing exploration of the Solar System and the patch itself is in the shape of a spiral-armed galaxy.