Soyuz TMA-20 crew greeting audience at the launch pad, just before entering elevator transporting them up to the Souyz TMA-20 spacecraft.

ESA's astronaut Paolo Nespoli was launched on 15 December from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 20:09 CET with Dmitri Kondratyev and Catherine Coleman for a challenging 6-month mission on the International Space Station (ISS) as members of Expeditions 26/27.
Paolo’s MagISStra mission is Europe’s third long-duration mission on the ISS. Between December 2010 and June 2011 he will be part of the ISS crew as a flight engineer.