page_title: André Kuipers
section_title: Expedition 30/31
hierarchical_section_title: André Kuipers / Space flight experience / Expedition 30/31
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: André Kuipers in het ISS, spelende met een waterdruppel en de gewichtloosheid
context_page_description: André Kuipers is a Dutch physician and ESA astronaut. He became the second Dutch citizen, third Dutch-born and fifth Dutch-speaking astronaut upon launch of Soyuz TMA-4 on 19 April 2004. Kuipers returned to Earth aboard Soyuz TMA-3 11 days later.
  Kuipers is the first Dutch astronaut to return to space. On 5 August 2009, Dutch minister of economic affairs Maria van der Hoeven, announced Kuipers was selected as an astronaut for International Space Station Expeditions 30 and 31. He was launched to space on 21 December 2011 and returned to Earth on 1 July 2012.
context_section_description: On 26 November 2008, Dutch minister of economic affairs Maria van der Hoeven pushed for a second, six-month mission for Kuipers in 2011. In the same speech, she said she would support the ISS project with an extra "few" million euros.
  After a call with ESA director general Jean-Jacques Dordain on 4 August 2009, Maria van der Hoeven confirmed on 5 August that Kuipers would be making a second space flight, starting in December 2011. Kuipers was the first astronaut to be selected for ISS Expeditions 30 and 31. Kuipers launched on 21 December 2011 on the Soyuz TMA-03M flight with his two fellow crew members Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko from the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos, and Don Pettit from NASA. They arrived at the station on 23 December 2011 when their Soyuz docked to the Rassvet module on the Russian side.  They returned to earth on 1 July 2012, when their Soyuz TMA-03M touched down in the steppe of Kazakhstan.
caption: Kuipers experimenting with a water drop in weightlessness in 2012
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