Andre Kuipers, born October 5, 1958 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is the second Dutch citizen and the third Dutch-born astronaut in space. The first Dutch-born astronaut, Lodewijk van den Berg was born in Zeeland but had become a U.S. citizen when he flew on the Space Shuttle, so was no longer a Dutch citizen.
Kuipers was accepted into the ESA Astronaut Corps in 1998. His first trip into space was aboard Soyuz TMA-4 in April 2004 to the International Space Station. He conducted 21 experiments in just 11 days before returning to Earth aboard Soyuz TMA-3.
He returned to space December 2011 aboard Soyuz TMA-03M to the ISS as the Flight Engineer and Medical Crew Officer. He remained until July 1, 2012 when he returned to Earth.
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