Expedition 31 was the thirty-first long-duration mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Expedition 31 began with the Soyuz TMA-18 undocking in May 2012 with the three new crew members (Dimitri Rezinov, Mike Massimino and Howard Wolowitz). The only known goal of Expedition 31 was for payload specialist Howard Wolowitz to install his team's deep field space telescope on the ISS. The three astronauts were launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on May 10, 2012. The return was delayed by ten days on October 18, 2012.
The motto on the mission patch reads Magnus Crepitus Theoria, which is Latin for "Big Bang Theory".