December 21, 2011 - Baikonur Cosmodrome. In accordance with the mission plan of the International Space Station (ISS) and Russian commitments under this international project, a manned transportation spacecraft Soyuz TMA-03M was launched from Baikonur launch site at 05:16:15 PM Moscow Time. The objective of the launch is to deliver to ISS a crew of three in order bring the crew of Expedition Thirty (ISS-30) up to six. The crew of Soyuz TMA-03M consists of: Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko (spacecraft commander), astronaut of the European Space Agency Andre Kuipers (spacecraft flight engineer) and US astronaut Donald Pettit (flight engineer-2 of the spacecraft). The spacecraft was put into a parking low-Earth orbit with the following parameters: 51.65 ° inclination , 198.93 km minimal altitude, 267.02 km maximum altitude, 88.87 minutes orbital period. The onboard systems of the spacecraft operate normally. At the launch site, the spacecraft prelaunch processing and launch were performed under the direction of the State Commission (chaired by the head of Roscosmos VA Popovkin). The Commission was basing its decisions to proceed with each next step in processing and launching on the final report of the Technical Management headed by the President of RSC Energia, Designer General VA Lopota. According to the telemetry data and reports from the crew of ISS, the space station systems operate normally. The station is ready for docking with the spacecraft. .
