ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori to fly to the ISS on Italian
Soyuz mission ENEIDE
Roberto Vittori will be the next ESA astronaut to fly to
the International Space Station, on the 10-day Italian Soyuz mission,
scheduled to be launched on 15 April next year from the Baikonur Cosmodrome
in Kazakhstan.
The mission is called ENEIDE and takes its name from the
epic tale written by the Latin poet Virgil in the 1st century BC. This
story tells of the journey of Aeneas from Troy to Italy and the foundation
of Rome.
Vittori is a member of ESA’s European Astronaut Corps and also
an active Italian Air Force pilot. He is scheduled to take off on flight
10S to the ISS as flight engineer on board the Soyuz TMA-6 spacecraft
alongside the Soyuz Commander and Roskosmos cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev
and NASA astronaut John Phillips. The main objectives of the mission are:
for the ESA astronaut to perform a full experimental programme of major
scientific interest and valuable international cooperation on board the
ISS; to exchange the station lifeboat, Soyuz TMA-5, for Soyuz TMA-6; and
to exchange the current ISS Expedition 10 crew (Leroy Chiao and Salizhan
Sharipov) for the ISS Expedition 11 crew (Krikalev and Phillips).
As flight engineer on both the ascent phase and the return journey, Vittori
will take an active role in piloting and docking the spacecraft. Seven
European astronauts have flown to and worked on the ISS so far though
this is the first time that a European astronaut will be on his second
mission to the ISS. From 25 April to 5 May 2002 Vittori took part in the
Marco Polo mission. This will also be the first time that four of the
five ISS partners, the ESA Member States known as the “European Partner”,
Russia, the United States and Canada, have taken part in a Soyuz mission
to the ISS, since the backup astronaut for Roberto Vittori is Robert Thirsk
from the Canadian Space Agency (Canada is an ESA Cooperating State).
The Soyuz TMA-6 spacecraft will remain docked with the ISS for six months
to act as an emergency return vehicle for the ISS Expedition 11 crew.
For Vittori’s return journey in Soyuz TMA-5, he will be accompanied
by the current ISS crew, Leroy Chiao, Expedition 10 Commander, and Salizhan
Sharipov, Expedition 10 Flight Engineer. Soyuz TMA-5 is the spacecraft
which carried the Expedition 10 crew to the ISS in October. Sergei Krikalev
will take over from Leroy Chiao as ISS Commander and John Phillips from
Salizhan Sharipov as ISS Flight Engineer.
ENEIDE, an ESA mission, is co-sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Defence
and the Lazio Region, with the support of Finmeccanica, FILAS and the
Rome Chamber of Commerce (CCIAA). Many of the experiments are being developed
by Italian researchers and built by Italian industry and research institutions.
“I am pleased to see this mission taking shape with such a great
degree of international involvement”, said Daniel Sacotte, ESA’s
Director of Human Spaceflight, Microgravity and Exploration Programmes,
“ENEIDE, as with all human spaceflight missions, will benefit many
areas of life and further expand the experience of the European Astronaut
Corps. This will help us on the road to further human exploration of our
solar system”.
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