Expedition 30 in the context of Anton Shkaplerov

Europe is traditionally defined as one of seven continents. Physiographically, it is the northwestern peninsula of the larger landmass known as Eurasia (or the larger Afro-Eurasia); Asia occupies the centre and east of this continuous landmass. Europe's eastern frontier is usually delineated by the Ural Mountains in Russia, which is the largest country by land area in the continent. The southeast boundary with Asia is not universally defined, but the modern definition is generally the Ural River or, less commonly, the Emba River. The boundary continues to the Caspian Sea, the crest of the Caucasus Mountains (or, less commonly, the river Kura in the Caucasus), and on to the Black Sea. The Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles conclude the Asian boundary. The Mediterranean Sea to the south separates Europe from Africa. The western boundary is the Atlantic Ocean. Iceland is usually included in Europe because it is over twice as close to mainland Europe as mainland North America. There is ongoing debate on where the geographical centre of Europe falls.

The Gulf of Almería (Spanish: Golfo de Almería) is a bight of the Mediterranean Sea, in the southeastern end of the Iberian Peninsula.

It lies between Punta Sabinar and Cabo de Gata. It is shaped as a semicircle opened to the south with a protrusion in its center featuring the mouth of the Andarax river. Scholars placing ancient Urci in Pechina identify the Sinus Urcitanus cited by Pomponius Mela with the Gulf of Almería.

Anatoli Alekseyevich Ivanishin (Russian: Анатолий Алексеевич Иванишин; born 15 January 1969) is a former Russian cosmonaut. His first visit to space was to the International Space Station on board the Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft as an Expedition 29/Expedition 30 crew member, launching in November 2011 and returning in April 2012. Ivanishin was the commander of the International Space Station for Expedition 49.

Expedition 31 was the 31st long-duration expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). It began on 27 April 2012 with the departure from the ISS of the Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft, which returned the Expedition 30 crew to Earth. The expedition ended on 1 July 2012, when crew members Oleg Kononenko, André Kuipers and Don Pettit departed from the ISS aboard Soyuz TMA-03M, marking the beginning of Expedition 32.

Oleg Dmitriyevich Kononenko (Russian: Олег Дмитриевич Кононенко; Turkmen: Oleg Dmitriýewiç Kononenko; born 21 June 1964) is a Russian cosmonaut. He has flown to the International Space Station five times as a flight engineer on Expedition 17 aboard Soyuz TMA-12, as a flight engineer on Expedition 30 and commander of Expedition 31 aboard Soyuz TMA-03M, as a flight engineer on Expedition 44 and Expedition 45 aboard Soyuz TMA-17M, as a flight engineer on Expedition 57 and commander of Expedition 58 and Expedition 59 aboard Soyuz MS-11, and as a flight engineer on Expedition 69 and Expedition 70 and commander of Expedition 71 aboard Soyuz MS-24/Soyuz MS-25.

Kononenko has accumulated 1,111 days in space over the course of five long-duration missions on the ISS. On 4 February 2024, at 07:30:08 UTC, he broke the record for the most time spent in space previously held by Gennady Padalka at 878 days.