Embroidered Mission Patch for Soyuz TMA-02M

Soyuz TMA-02M is a current flight to the International Space Station. It is transporting three members of the Expedition 28 crew to the International Space Station. TMA-02M is the 110th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft; the first flight launched in 1967. It is the second flight of the improved Soyuz-TMA-M series; the first was on 7 October 2010. The Soyuz will most likely remain on board the space station for the Expedition 28 increment to serve as an emergency escape vehicle.

The Soyuz spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, 7 June 2011 at 9:12 pm UTC (8 June 2011, 2:12 am local time). Originally expected to dock with the International Space Station around 5:22 pm EDT on Thursday, 9 June 2011,the Soyuz docked with the ISS at 5:18 pm EDT, four minutes ahead of schedule. The spacecraft carried to the ISS a three person crew (Sergey Volkov, Russia; Michael E. Fossum, U.S.A; Satoshi Furukawa, Japan), who are expected to remain on board the station until mid-November.

NASA astronaut Mike Fossum (right), Expedition 28 flight engineer and Expedition 29 commander; along with Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov (center) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, both Expedition 28/29 flight engineers, pose for a photo during a docking timeline simulation training session in the Space Vehicle Mock-up Facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Photo credit: NASA or National Aeronautics and Space Administration