Updated August 22, 2026: This article has been rebuilt as a historical account of Soyuz TMA-03M and André Kuipers’ 193-day PromISSe mission, with the original launch report corrected and brought up to date.

At 14:16 Central European Time on December 21, 2011, a Soyuz rocket rose from the frozen steppe of Kazakhstan. Inside the cramped TMA-03M spacecraft were Russian commander Oleg Kononenko, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and ESA astronaut André Kuipers. For Kuipers, a physician from Amsterdam, it was a return to orbit after a short visit to the International Space Station in 2004. This time he would not be coming home after eleven days.

The launch began one of the most important Dutch human-spaceflight missions to date. Kuipers would spend 193 days in space, work as a flight engineer during Expeditions 30 and 31, support dozens of European experiments and help berth the first privately built spacecraft ever to visit the ISS.

A winter launch from Baikonur

The temperature at Baikonur had dropped to roughly minus 24 degrees Celsius during final preparations. The Soyuz launcher was rolled horizontally by rail to the same historic launch area from which Yuri Gagarin began the first human spaceflight in 1961. Two days before departure, technicians raised the rocket upright on the pad while the crew remained in medical quarantine.

Kuipers sat in the left-hand flight-engineer seat beside Kononenko, the Soyuz commander. Pettit occupied the third seat. The rocket lifted off at 13:16 UTC, or 14:16 in the Netherlands and 19:16 local time in Kazakhstan. About nine minutes later, the Soyuz spacecraft was in orbit.

Reaching orbit was only the beginning. In 2011, Soyuz crews still used a two-day rendezvous profile rather than the faster approaches adopted on later missions. TMA-03M circled Earth about 35 times and performed a sequence of engine burns to raise and align its orbit with the station.

On December 23, the spacecraft docked with the ISS Rassvet module at 15:19 UTC. Kuipers, Pettit and Kononenko joined NASA commander Dan Burbank and Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin, restoring the station to a six-person crew shortly before Christmas.

Was André Kuipers the third Dutch astronaut?

The answer depends on whether “Dutch” refers to birthplace or citizenship.

• Lodewijk van den Berg was born in Sluiskil in the Netherlands and flew aboard Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51B in April 1985. By then he was a naturalised United States citizen.
• Wubbo Ockels flew on Challenger mission STS-61A in October 1985. ESA recognises him as the first person with a Dutch passport to travel into space.
• André Kuipers became the second Dutch citizen in space during his 2004 DELTA mission and the third Dutch-born person to reach space if Van den Berg is included.

That makes the original headline defensible, but incomplete. Kuipers’ more meaningful distinction is that he became the first Dutch astronaut to fly twice and the first to spend a long-duration mission aboard the ISS.

From an eleven-day visit to a six-month expedition

Kuipers first travelled to the station aboard Soyuz TMA-4 in April 2004. His DELTA mission lasted eleven days, including nine days aboard the ISS. The 2011 PromISSe mission was entirely different. He became part of the station’s permanent expedition crew, living and working in orbit for more than half a year.

His medical background was directly relevant. Before becoming an astronaut, Kuipers trained as a physician and worked in aerospace medicine, including research into spatial disorientation and space sickness. On the ISS he served not only as a flight engineer but also as a trained crew medical officer and a subject in experiments investigating how the human body responds to months without normal gravity.

The mission name, PromISSe, combined the word “promise” with the ISS acronym. The programme included human physiology, biology, fluid physics, materials science, radiation studies, technology demonstrations and Earth observation. ESA’s later biography credits Kuipers with performing more than 50 European experiments, while NASA records that the expedition crew collectively supported more than 200 investigations involving over 400 researchers.

What Kuipers actually did aboard the ISS

A long-duration astronaut’s working day is less cinematic than a launch but far more varied. Kuipers maintained station systems, operated laboratory equipment, exercised for roughly two hours a day to reduce muscle and bone loss, unpacked cargo, photographed Earth and communicated with researchers and mission controllers across several continents.

Several operations became landmarks of the PromISSe mission.

ATV-3 Edoardo Amaldi

ESA’s third Automated Transfer Vehicle arrived in March 2012 carrying fuel, water, oxygen, scientific equipment, food and other supplies. The ATV approached and docked automatically, but Kuipers and Kononenko monitored the operation and were prepared to intervene if the spacecraft departed from its safe approach corridor. While attached, the vehicle also helped reboost the station’s orbit.

The first commercial spacecraft at the ISS

The mission’s most historically significant moment came on May 25, 2012. SpaceX’s Dragon completed the first visit by a privately built spacecraft to the International Space Station. Don Pettit used the Canadarm2 robotic arm to capture Dragon while Kuipers assisted with the approach. Kuipers then took the controls and manoeuvred the spacecraft into position for berthing to the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module.

At the time it was a demonstration flight. In hindsight, it marked the beginning of a fundamental change in space-station logistics. Commercial cargo vehicles would become routine, and commercial crew spacecraft would later carry astronauts to orbit. Kuipers was physically at the controls during one of the transition points between government-only spaceflight and the public-private system used today.

Spaceship Earth

Education was not an afterthought. Through the “Spaceship Earth” theme and Mission X: Train Like an Astronaut, Kuipers connected the mechanics of living in orbit to health, science and environmental responsibility on Earth. His photographs and broadcasts gave Dutch students a direct view of a planet without borders, seen from a laboratory moving around Earth roughly sixteen times each day.

Why the planned May return became July

Early reports said the crew would return in May 2012. That was the schedule at launch, and it explains the date in the original version of this article. The operational plan later changed, extending the mission.

Soyuz TMA-03M finally undocked from Rassvet late on June 30. The descent module landed near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on July 1 at 08:14 UTC, or 14:14 local time. Kononenko, Pettit and Kuipers had spent 193 days in space, including 191 days aboard the station.

The completed mission was therefore considerably longer than the five-and-a-half-month flight originally announced. Kuipers returned with a total career time in space of more than 203 days when his earlier DELTA mission is included.

The Soyuz behind the mission

Soyuz TMA-03M belonged to the modernised TMA-M generation. Its digital flight-control computer and updated telemetry systems replaced heavier analogue equipment used by earlier Soyuz versions. The basic architecture remained recognisable: an orbital module at the front, a bell-shaped descent module in the centre and a service module containing propulsion, power and life-support hardware.

Only the descent module returned to Earth. Before atmospheric entry, explosive bolts separated the three sections. The orbital and service modules burned up, while the crew capsule survived re-entry behind a heat shield, deployed parachutes and fired small landing rockets moments before touching the Kazakh steppe.

For astronauts of this era, Soyuz was not merely transport. A docked spacecraft also served as the station’s lifeboat, ready to evacuate its three assigned crewmembers in an emergency.

Why the PromISSe mission still matters

The launch was important to the Netherlands, but its legacy is broader than nationality. PromISSe combined European laboratory science, Russian transport, American and Canadian robotics, international station operations and the arrival of a privately built cargo craft. It captured the ISS at its most characteristic: not a single nation’s outpost, but a machine that could function only through cooperation.

Kuipers’ role also demonstrated why astronaut backgrounds matter. He was simultaneously a Soyuz flight engineer, station operator, robotic-arm controller, physician, experiment subject, photographer and science communicator. The public remembers the rocket. The lasting value came from the six months of work after it.

Frequently asked questions

When did Soyuz TMA-03M launch?

It launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on December 21, 2011, at 13:16 UTC.

Who flew aboard Soyuz TMA-03M?

The crew consisted of Roscosmos commander Oleg Kononenko, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and ESA astronaut André Kuipers.

How long was André Kuipers in space?

The PromISSe flight lasted 193 days. Combined with his 2004 DELTA mission, Kuipers accumulated more than 203 days in space.

Was Kuipers the first Dutch astronaut?

No. Wubbo Ockels was the first Dutch citizen in space. Lodewijk van den Berg was born in the Netherlands but flew as a United States citizen. Kuipers was the second Dutch citizen and, counting Van den Berg, the third Dutch-born person to reach space.

What was PromISSe?

PromISSe was the name of Kuipers’ long-duration ESA mission during ISS Expeditions 30 and 31. It combined scientific research, station operations, education and work with visiting cargo spacecraft.

Sources and further reading

• NASA: Soyuz TMA-03M launch
• ESA: André Kuipers arrives at the ISS
• ESA biography of André Kuipers
• NASA: Soyuz TMA-03M landing
• ESA: Dragon capture and berthing
• ESA: Wubbo Ockels and the Dutch astronaut distinction

Explore more mission history and astronomy in CosmicGravity’s Space archive.