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The crew
Designing process
All designs copyright Roscosmos/Spacepatches.nl.
The backup patch.
The crew of Soyuz TMA-20M
An earlier version of the design featured different symbols to represent the crew members.
The Soyuz TMA-20M patch pays tribute to the origins of heraldry by its use of the classic shield shape. Its fields are divided by band of colors representing the Russian and American flags. The silhouette of a Soyuz spacecraft is at the centre of the shield, which is crowned by an outline of the International Space Station.
Three stars against the blackness of space symbolize the three astronauts of the spaceship, while animals feature in the other three quadrants.
The black bear comes from the coat of arms of the city of Rybinsk, birthplace of spaceship commander Ovchinin. This city on the Volga is also the ‘capital of barge-haulers’, called Burlaks in Russian. ’BURLAK’ is the callsign for the crew of this Soyuz mission.
The American bald eagle, carrying the vector from the NASA logo it its beak, represents American astronaut Williams.
The grey crane with its wings outstretched is for cosmonaut Skripotchka, who used the same bird in the patch of his first flight on board of the first in the current series of Soyuz spacecraft, on this one, the final Soyuz TMA-M. Patch designed by Luc van den Abeelen.
Back up patch
In action
