Soyuz launcher ready for flight

Soyuz launcher ready for flight at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on the morning of 21 December 2011.

André Kuipers is scheduled to be launched atop of this rocket on a Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft later today to space as a 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 aboard the ISS.