25 Years of Human Spaceflight in Europe (Forwarded)

European Space Agency
Press Release No. 51-2003
Paris, France 22 August 2003

25 Years of Human Spaceflight in Europe

2003 is a year for Europe to commemorate a number of "firsts" in human spaceflight.

25 years ago Europe made its entry into human spaceflight history when the
Czecholslovakian cosmonaut Vladimir Remek took part in a first mission under the
Interkosmos cooperation programme between the Soviet Union and other partner
countries. He lifted off from Baikonur on 2 March 1978 on the Soyuz 28
spacecraft for a 8-day mission to the Salyut 6 space station. He was soon
followed, from 27 June to 5 July 1978, by a Polish cosmonaut colleague, Miroslaw
Hermaszewski on the Soyuz 30 mission. Two months later, on 26 August, German
cosmonaut Sigmund Jähn, on the third manned Interkosmos mission, climbed into
Soyuz 31, lifted off from Baikonur and, together with his Soviet fellow crew
member Valery Bykovski, circled the Earth 141 times on a eight-day mission to
the Salyut 6 space station before returning to Earth and landing safely on 3
September. The first West European astronaut to participate in a mission on a
Soviet spacecraft was French astronaut Jean-Loup Chrétien of CNES, who flew on
24 June 1982 aboard Soyuz T-6 to the Salyut-7 space station.

20 years ago the Western side of Europe entered the human spaceflight arena with
its own orbital laboratory, with the maiden flight of Spacelab, carried inside
the cargo bay of NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia, on the 10-day STS-9/Spacelab 1
mission from 28 November to 8 December 1983 under a cooperation agreement
between NASA and ESA. This was also saw the first spaceflight by a West European
astronaut, and the first ever by a non-American citizen on a US spacecraft, the
German ESA astronaut Ulf Merbold, who twice returned to space, on the Spacelab
International Microgravity Laboratory 1 mission on US Space Shuttle flight
STS-42 in January 1992 and, in the framework of the ESA-Russian Euromir 94
programme, on a Soyuz TM-20 to the Russian space station Mir from 3 September
1995 to 29 February 1996, thus becoming the first European to have flown on both
a US and a Russian spacecraft.

Coincidentally, although coming from two opposite political blocks and carrying
different passports at the time when they performed their historic spaceflights,
the then East German cosmonaut Sigmund Jähn and West German astronaut Ulf
Merbold come from the same region in the green heart of Germany, the Vogtland,
halfway between Nuremberg and Leipzig. Jähn was born in Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz
and Merbold in the town of Greiz.

Separated by the Iron Curtain until 1989, Jähn and Merbold later worked together
on the same space programmes, first for the Russian space station Mir and then
for the International Space Station.

The German Space Agency DLR, with support from the European Space Agency, is
marking the 25th anniversary of the flight by Sigmund Jähn with a special event
on Saturday 30 August, beginning at 11:00 h, in Markneukirchen, near the home
town of Sigmund Jähn, Morgenröthe-Morgenkranz.

Under the title "Spaceflight – a Journey through Time" and in the presence of
German President Johannes Rau and the German Minister for Education and
Research, Edelgard Bulmahn, the Chairman of the DLR Board, Professor Sigmar
Wittig, and ESA Director of Human Spaceflight, Jörg Feustel-Büechl, will welcome
over 1000 invited guests to this event.

In a multi-faceted and informative 90-minute on-stage programme, which will be
transmitted live via satellite TV and Internet, the event will honour Sigmund
Jähn's contribution to peaceful international cooperation in space and review
the mission by Ulf Merbold on the first flight by Spacelab, which was built
under ESA contract by a European industrial consortium led by the German company
ERNO (today EADS Space Transportation) in Bremen and more than 20 Spacelab
missions that followed, notably the German Spacelab mission D-2 ten years ago,
from 26 April to 6 May 1993, with the German astronauts Hans Schlegel and Ulrich
Walter. Schlegel has since joined ESA's European Astronaut Corps based in
Cologne, which is headed by Ernst Messerschmid, who together with Dutch ESA
astronaut Wubbo Ockels and German DLR astronaut Reinhold Furrer took part in the
first German Spacelab mission, Spacelab D-1 on STS-61 A, in 1985.

The "Journey through Time" will also take in the four missions by European
astronauts to the Russian Mir station which took place in the framework of the
DLR-Russian cooperation on Mir 92 and 97 and ESA-Russian cooperation on Euromir
94 and 95.

Several European and Russian astronauts and cosmonauts involved in these
missions will be at Markneukirchen, including Sigmund Jähn, Eberhard Köllner
(replacement crew member for Jähn on Soyuz 31) and Valery Bykovski (Soyuz 31),
Ulf Merbold (Spacelab 1, Spacelab IML-1 and Euromir 94), Ernst Messerschmid
(Spacelab D-1), Klaus-Dietrich Flade (Mir 92), Ulrich Walter (Spacelab D-2),
Thomas Reiter and Yuri Gidzenko (Euromir 95) Reinhold Ewald, Vassily Zbliyev and
Valery Korsun (Mir 97).

The event will not only honour Europe's past achievements in European human
spaceflight, but will also be taking a look at the present and futu German
Education and Research Minister Edelgard Bulmahn, ESA Director of Human
Spaceflight, Jörg Feustel-Büechl, and DLR Chairman, Prof. Sigmar Wittig, will
present the European and German views and plans for the International Space
Station and Europe's and Germany's future role in manned space activities.

One of the highlights will be a live video link with the International Space
Station, from where crew members Yuri Malenchenko from Russia and Edward Lu
(NASA), who in October this year will be joined by ESA astronaut Pedro Duque
during the Spanish Soyuz mission to the ISS, will speak to the audience in
Markneukirchen.

The whole event will be transmitted live on the Astra satellite system and can
be received by anyone in Europe who is equipped with an analog satellite
receiver tuned to the following parameters: position 19.2 East, analog
transponder, frequency 10.921 GHz, horizontal polarisation, stereo sound at 7.02
and 7.20 MHz. In parallel, the event is being transmitted in streaming video
mode on the Internet and can be accessed from www.dlr.de and www.esa.int .

Transmission will start at 11:00 h and finish at 12:30 h.

Attendance at in the event is by invitation only.

For further information please contact:

ESA Media Relations Paris
Franco Bonacina
Tel.: +33 1 5369 7713, fax: 7690
E-mail:

DLR Press and Public Relations Cologne
Eduard Müller
Tel.: +49 2203 601 2805, fax:3249
E-mail:

DLR Press and Public Relations Berlin
Andreas Schütz
Tel.: +49 30 67055 130, fax: 120
E-mail:

Press Office Vogtland District
Kerstin Büttner
Tel.: +49 3741 392 431, fax: 292
E-mail:

Further information:

ESA, Media Relations Service
Tel: +33.(0)1.5369.7155
Fax: +33.(0)1.5369.7690