ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter from Germany is about to become the first European to live and

This July, ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter from Germany is about to become the
first European to live and work on the International Space Station (ISS) on
a long-duration mission.

ESA Director of Human Spaceflight, Microgravity and Exploration, Daniel
Sacotte, recently signed an agreement on the mission with the Head of the
Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), Anatoli Perminov. "The agreement
covers the ESA astronaut's flight in a crew position originally planned for
a Russian cosmonaut", explained Sacotte, "and he will perform all the tasks
originally allocated to the second Russian cosmonaut on board the ISS and,
in addition, an ESA experimental programme."
The agreement forms part of a set of bilateral understandings between
Roscosmos and NASA and between ESA and NASA, enabling the implementation of
the mission.

Thomas Reiter, the astronaut assigned to the mission, is a member of the
European Astronaut Corps, based at ESA's European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in
Cologne, Germany. Léopold Eyharts, from France, a member of the same Corps,
will be the back-up for this mission.

Reiter will reach the ISS on Space Shuttle flight STS-121 currently planned
for next July, and return to Earth on flight STS-116 in February.

This will be Reiter's second long-duration mission on board a space station,
following his six-month stay on the Russian Mir, ten years ago, during the
ESA Euromir 1995 mission.

"With the maiden flight of the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) and the
launch of the European laboratory Columbus, both in 2006, ESA is making
important contributions to the ISS and its scientific capabilities and,
consequently, we are assuming significant operational responsibilities in
this programme. I am confident that this mission will give Europe a lot of
operational experience and scientific results which will further prepare us
for the exciting and challenging times ahead," said Thomas Reiter.

"Moreover," Léopold Eyharts pointed out, "as the back-up astronaut for this
mission, I am receiving the same training as Thomas Reiter, which will be an
excellent preparation for my tasks as prime astronaut for a future ESA
mission to the ISS in connection with Columbus."

Both astronauts are already in training for the mission in the various ISS
training facilities at Houston, Moscow and Cologne, together with their
Russian and American astronaut colleagues.

"For the first time, and as a test for later European long-duration missions
to the ISS, mission preparation, training, operations and multilateral
coordination will be carried out as far as possible through the multilateral
decision-making and management structures established for ISS exploitation,"
underlined ESA's Mission Manager Aldo Petrivelli. "This will be an excellent
opportunity for testing coordination and cooperation between ground control
and support centres like the Houston and Moscow Mission Control Centres, the
Columbus Control Centre in Oberpfaffenhofen, near Munich (*), the European
Astronaut Centre in Cologne and the various User Support and Operations
Centres throughout Europe that will be involved in the mission. The
operational teams from ESA, national space agencies, industry and research
institutions in Europe will thus gain very useful operational experience,
also for future Columbus system, subsystems and payload operations."

Note to Editors

1. Thomas Reiter's mission is planned to take place during the stay by
Expedition Crews 11 and 12 on the International Space Station. Expedition
Crew 11 flew to the ISS on 15 April, on a Russian Soyuz TMA spacecraft,
together with ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori. While Vittori returned to Earth
ten days later with Expedition Crew 10, Expedition Crew 11, Russian
cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and NASA astronaut John L. Phillips, will stay on
the ISS for six months, spending part of this period with Thomas Reiter,
until they are relieved at the end of September by Expedition Crew 12.

2. Reiter will join Krikalev and Phillips in July on Space Shuttle flight
STS-121 (ISS mission ULF1.1). He will return to Earth on Space Shuttle
flight STS-116 (ISS mission 12A.1), currently planned for February 2006,
alongside another ESA astronaut, Christer Fuglesang from Sweden, who will be
a member of the STS-116 crew.

3. Depending on the actual flight dates of the Space Shuttle fleet, the
actual time between Reiter's outbound and return flights might vary between
six and seven months.

4. Reiter's mission marks the return to a permanent crew of three on the
ISS. This will increase crew time available for scientific experiments. The
ESA experimental programme for this long-duration mission differs from those
of past and present European Soyuz flights, such as the Eneide mission by
Roberto Vittori to the ISS. Whilst the latter contains a number of dedicated
experiments tailored to a short duration, the long-duration mission is
regarded as a real precursor of future ISS utilisation by Europe with a
continuous experiment programme. The mission will provide ESA with very
valuable experience in planning experimental programmes to be carried out in
the European Columbus laboratory.

5. The experimental programme for the long-duration mission consists of an
attractive set of peer-reviewed scientific experiments. In addition to the
scientific experiments, European commercial experiments are under discussion
and an educational programme is envisaged during the European astronaut's
stay, as well as a technology experiment in which e-learning techniques
would be tested from space. .

6. The presence of the European astronaut will also enable ESA to play a
major role in the commissioning of three ESA-developed payloads: PFS
(Pulmonary Function System), EMCS (European Microgravity Cultivation System)
and MELFI (minus 80-degree Freezer), which are to be launched by NASA on the
first return to flight of the US Space Shuttle (STS-114), currently
scheduled for May, and aboard the Shuttle (STS-121) on which Thomas Reiter
will himself travel into space. This will help to further the overall
purpose of demonstrating how European astronauts are going to participate in
future routine ISS operations and in particular highlight the importance of
the European contributions to the scientific inventory on the Station. It
will also safeguard smooth on-orbit commissioning and accelerate the
operational status of these facilities to the benefit of ESA's own
experimental programme on the ISS, including some experiments already
planned with these facilities for this long-duration mis

(*) The Columbus Control Centre, developed for ESA under the prime
contractorship of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen near
Munich, was inaugurated in October 2004 and is already supporting mission
preparation and mission simulations from its control rooms.

For requests of interviews with the astronauts, please contact :

Jean Coisne
Astronaut Communications Officer
European Astronaut Centre
Cologne (Germany)
Tel: +49 2203 6001 110
Fax: +49 2203 6001 112
E-mail :

For further information please contact:

Franco Bonacina
ESA Media Relations Division
Paris (France)
Tel: +33 1 5369 7155
Fax: +33 1 5369 7690

Dieter Isakeit
Erasmus User Centre and Communication Office
Directorate of Human Spaceflight, Microgravity and Exploration Programmes
Noordwijk (The Netherlands)
Tel: +31 71 565 5451
Fax: +31 71 565 8008
E-mail:

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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info

This July, ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter from Germany is about to become the
first European to live and work on the International Space Station (ISS) on
a long-duration mission.



Reiter had previously been mentioned as flying to ISS on the next
Soyuz, TMA-7 in October.

Do we know who will now occupy that seat, or will in now be a two man
flight ?