Abstract
André Kuipers’ Promisse mission, was launched aboard Soyuz TMA-04M in May 2012, when he joined Expedition 31. During that mission, the first SpaceX Dragon capsule arrived at the ISS, the first commercial resupply mission.
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Notes
- 1.
See this author’s book, In the Footsteps of Columbus, European Missions to the International Space Station.
- 2.
The video, Space Oddity, has over 44 million views on YouTube at the time of writing.
- 3.
ESA astronaut Paulo Nespoli explained to the author at a talk in Cork, Ireland, in July 2018 that this was due to the updated processor, communications and satellite navigation equipment on the latest Soyuz variants. Communication is no longer reliant on an overhead radio line-of-sight; on board computers are more powerful, and GPS navigation allows more accurate location.
- 4.
Awarded after landing his AMX fighter safely after a bird strike.
- 5.
The six astronauts selected in 2009 were Samantha Cristoforetti of Italy, Alexander Gerst of Germany, Andreas Mogensen of Denmark, Luca Parmitano of Italy, Timothy Peake of United Kingdom and Thomas Pesquet of France. Matthias Maurer reached the final 10 in 2009, but was not selected and joined ESA as a crew support engineer. He joined the astronaut corps in July 2015 and completed basic training in 2018.
- 6.
Cassidy wore a fake moustache when he first arrived on the station to join Expedition 35 in March 2013. This was in honor of station commander Chris Hadfield, who is famous for his moustache.
- 7.
In 2013, Nauka was scheduled to be launched later the same year. However, at the time of writing (September 2019), it had not yet been delivered to the ISS. Rassvet was the last Russian segment launched to the ISS. There are reports that Multi-purpose Laboratory Module (MLM) Nauka will be launched in late 2020, as contaminated tanks are being replaced. However, its completion has been significantly delayed because its originally planned launch date was 2007. If ever launched, it will replace Pirs at Zvezda’s nadir port.
- 8.
Fuglesang performed two spacewalks during the Celsius mission on STS-116 and three during the Alissé mission on STS-128. All spacewalks were for ISS construction.
- 9.
Russians have been using the Pille dosimeters since the Salyut 6 space station, which was in orbit between 1977 and 1982.
- 10.
The shortest was the EVA of June 24, 2004, when Gennady Padalka and Michael Finke cut short their spacewalk after a pressure issue with Finke’s primary oxygen tank. It lasted 13 minutes.
- 11.
Its predecessor, STP-H3, was delivered to the station during the final flight of space shuttle Endeavour on STS-134 in May 2011.
- 12.
It was surpassed as the longest Russian spacewalk on December 27, 2013, by Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky who spent 8 hours, 7 minutes on their excursion. At the time of writing (July 2019) the longest Russian spacewalk was that of Alexander Misurkin and Anton Shkaplerov on February 2, 2018, lasting 8 hours, 13 minutes.
- 13.
Another contender for most tortured acronym award.
- 14.
In 2017, he would go on to be a crewmate of ESA’s Thomas Pesquet during Expedition 51 and to command Expedition 52, with ESA’s Paolo Nespoli also aboard.
- 15.
G. David Low was a NASA astronaut who flew on STS-32, STS-43 and STS-57. He worked for Orbital Sciences after retiring from NASA.
- 16.
Coincidentally, Yurchikhin piloted the previous Soyuz relocation in June 2010. Then, Expedition 24’s Soyuz TMA-19 was moved from Zvezda to the then newly installed Rassvet.
- 17.
This was the third time an Olympic torch was launched into space but the first time it was taken on an EVA. The prior occasions were STS-78 in 1996 ahead of that year’s Atlanta summer games and STS-101 in 2000 ahead of the Sydney summer games.
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O’Sullivan, J. (2020). Volare. In: European Missions to the International Space Station. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30326-6_3
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