Expedition 30/31 crew members during the Press Conference

From left: NASA astronaut Don Pettit, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and ESA astronaut André Kuipers.

André is scheduled to be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, on the Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft on 21 December 2011. He will be the flight engineer for Expeditions 30 and 31. Travelling together with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and NASA astronaut Don Pettit, they will remain in space for nearly five months as part of the international crew of six on the ISS.

The crew is behind a glass screen during the press conference because of medical quarantine.