In the evening of Friday, 17 December 2010, the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft docked with the International Space Station carrying ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli and his crewmates Dmitri Kondratyev and Catherine Coleman. They will stay in orbit for six months and return to Earth in May 2011.

ESA’s third long-duration mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS) began Wednesday, 15 December 2010, when the Soyuz spacecraft was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

After circling the globe some 35 times, the spacecraft docked at 21:12 CET (20:12 GMT) on Friday, 17 December 2010.