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The crew
Designing process
All designs copyright Roscosmos/Spacepatches.nl.
The back up patch was the first to include the name "Baikonur" and the year of launch. Even though the back up crew included a Japanese instead of an Italian crew member, the Italian flag was still used. ,,We did not give this any thought'', Luc admits. ,,I believe it was only after the flight that someone brought it up.''
The crew of Soyuz TMA-20: Cady Coleman, Dmitri Kondratyev and Paolo Nespoli.
The artwork by Marina Korolenko from Murmansk, and two early sketches made by Luc - one for Soyuz TMA-21 and one for TMA-20.
The design with the flags around the edge, a Soyuz as the central element and the Big Dipper taken from a drawing of Marina Korolenko from Murmansk, was originally drawn up by Luc in March 2010 for Soyuz TMA-21. Soon, he realized that this launch would be very near the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight, which would be a more fitting theme for that patch. So, instead, the design was proposed to the Soyuz TMA-20 crew. The orignal artwork included the Earth with a colorful horizon, as seen during sunrise and sunset in space. Working together with Kondratyev in early July 2010, the central design lost these colors, but silver and gold elements were added. At the request of Kondratyev, the Southern Cross (also visible in the Expedition-27 patch) was included and his name, as is the case on the Expedition-27 patch, was written in Western script.
The final design was approved by the entire crew on July 29, 2010. Go for production of the patches was given on September 9, 2010. The art was revealed on September 10, 2010 by Roscosmos, along with the Soyuz TMA-01M design. Patches were produced by Spacepatches.nl / Emblemen.net.
Dmitri Kondratyev personally wrote down the description of his patch: ,,The manned space program of Russia does not stop in the near earth orbit. It is directed toward the future of humanity, which will unconditionally master the distant boundaries of space up to the constellations of Ursa Major, Southern Cross and the centuries-old lighthouse of humanity, the Pole star. The constellations of Ursa Major and southern cross lie at the different hemispheres of the Earth. Despite the fact that Earth itself does not make it possible to simultaneously see constellations of both hemispheres, we will investigate our neighbourhood everywhere, where this will be possibly. At the basis of emblem lies the drawing of Ursa Major by the girl from Murmansk region of Russia, Marina Korolenko. This emblem is visible from all corners of Russia. Let all children (of Russia) see this constellation, believe that to them also it is necessary to be the original discoverers of the new expanses of space. We believe that is the future of humanity as united population of planet the Earth, after the mastery of the expanses of boundless space.''
Back up patch
In action
Links
Soyuz TMA-20 at Wikipedia
Soyuz TMA-20 at Spacefacts
Soyuz TMA-20 at CollectSpace
Expedition-26 images at NASA
Larger images at our Flickr pages.
Expedition-26 images at the Energia website