Soyuz MS-03, 2016

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet (FR) is assigned to fly on the Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft to the International Space Station, scheduled for November 2016 and as part of Expedition 50/51, with cosmonaut Oleg Novitski and NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson. Expedition 50 begins with the scheduled undocking of Soyuz MS-01 in October 2016 and Thomas's crew join Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA and cosmonauts Andrei Borisenko and Sergei Ryzhikov who transfer from Expedition 49.

The Soyuz MS-03 crew patch was designed by Luc van den Abeelen of spacepatches.nl. The design is a classical 'shield' shape, the origin of this type of emblem. The flags represent the countries on this international space mission, the name of the spacecraft and the Roscosmos logo crown the design. Three animals symbolise each of the crew members occupying three quadrants, while the depicts the Soyuz spaceship, shown flying towards the Space Station's docking target. The eagle is taken from the state seal of Iowa, birth state of US astronaut Peggy Whitson; the Zubr buffalo from Belarus represents the Russian commander's origins; and a lion represents Thomas's origins from Normandy in France. Behind the crew's family names, a mountain in the Caucasus mountains is shown: Kazbek (the callsign for the crew).