ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori embarks on his second Soyuz mission to the ISS

ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori embarks on his second Soyuz mission to the ISS


15 April 2005

ESA PR 20-2005. The Eneide Mission, with European Space Agency astronaut
Roberto Vittori and the ISS Expedition 11 crew, lifted off today in the
Soyuz TMA-6 spacecraft on Flight 10S to the International Space Station
(ISS). The launch, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, took place at
06.46 local time (02.46 Central European Summer Time).

Having reached orbit after a nine-minute ascension phase on a Soyuz rocket,
Soyuz TMA-6 will now take about two days to travel to the ISS with its 3-man
crew: Roberto Vittori, from Italy, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who is
to be the Expedition 11 Commander on the ISS, and NASA astronaut John L.
Phillips, who will be the Expedition 11 Flight Engineer. They are scheduled
to dock automatically with the Station at 04:19 CEST on 17 April, with the
hatch opening two orbits later at 07:05.

Vittori is the Flight Engineer on Soyuz TMA-6, taking an active role
alongside Soyuz Commander Krikalev in piloting and docking the spacecraft.
He will also be playing a key role in the reentry, descent and landing on
his return flight. This is the sixth flight for the Soyuz TMA series, the
first having been in October 2002, with ESA astronaut Frank De Winne from
Belgium on board. By the end of the Eneide Mission European astronauts will
have flown in all of the Soyuz TMA spacecraft. The new Soyuz TMA-6 will
replace the Soyuz TMA-5 which flew the Expedition 10 crew to the ISS last
October and has been docked with the Station since then. Soyuz TMA-6 will
remain docked with the ISS for approximately six months, serving as an
emergency lifeboat.

Roberto Vittori becomes the first European astronaut to visit the ISS for a
second time. During his 10-day mission, eight of them on the ISS, he will
carry out an extensive experiment programme in the fields of human
physiology, biology, technology and education.
The Eneide Mission is being co-sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Defence
and the region of Lazio in the framework of an agreement between ESA and
Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency. Many of the experiments were
developed by Italian researchers and built by Italian industry and research
institutions.

The experiments cover a wide spectrum, including research into fatigue in
the upper limbs of astronauts, the results of which should help to find
methods of countering fatigue, thus maintaining the condition and improving
the performance of astronauts, which is of great importance to proposed
longer-term missions. The biology research includes a plant germination
experiment, which will look into the feasibility of growing sprouts of
herbaceous crops as a high-nutrition food source in space. This experiment
also contains an educational element, the aim of which is to involve and
interest school children in space science by having them germinate seeds on
Earth at the same time as Roberto Vittori does so in space. On the
technology side there are experiments which will test the durability of
electrical components for use in microsatellites and an experiment whose
objective is to measure and verify, in low-Earth orbit, the GPS and EGNOS
signals which will be used in the combined GPS/EGNOS navigation system for
spacecraft control and guidance. EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation
Overlay Service) is Europe's first venture into satellite navigation.

Roberto Vittori will carry out an extensive programme during the mission
"I am very pleased to see this mission successfully on its way", said Daniel
Sacotte, ESA's Director of Human Spaceflight, Microgravity and Exploration
Programmes. "The launch of Eneide is the culmination of a great deal of
effort by all parties, in Italy, Russia and the ESA centres involved in its
preparation, and I know that this effort will continue throughout the
mission and beyond. This cooperation will bring benefits to European
citizens of all ages through the extensive scientific, educational and
technological programme that will be carried out during the mission, and I
hope it will fire the imaginations of the children who will become our
scientists and engineers of tomorrow."

The 10-day Eneide Mission concludes with the return to Earth of the Soyuz
TMA-5 landing module, scheduled for midnight (Central European Summer Time)
on 24/25 April. On the return flight Roberto Vittori will be accompanied by
the ISS Expedition 10 crew, Leroy Chiao and Salizhan Sharipov, who arrived
at the ISS on 16 October in Soyuz TMA-5. Krikalev, ISS Expedition 11
Commander, and Phillips, ISS Expedition 11 Flight Engineer, are replacing
them.


For further media 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