A German astronaut will be the first European to spend a long mission on board the International Space Station, starting this summer, the Russian commander of the next ISS team said Tuesday.
The European Space Agency astronaut, Thomas Reiter, “will join us from an American space shuttle this summer,” said Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, during a press conference at the training center in Space City, near Moscow.
Until now, only Russians and US nationals have participated in missions of six months or longer on board the space station.
Reiter, 46, will be the third member of the ISS team and, thanks to his presence, “the time we can spend on scientific experiments will increase,” said Krikalev, who will take off for the space station on April 15.
After the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia in February 2003, NASA – the US space agency – was forced to suspend shuttle missions and the ISS teams were reduced to two members, a Russian and an American.
For that reason, teams often had to work more than expected to keep the space station in working condition, and had less time to devote to scientific work, Krikalev said.
The US space shuttle Discovery is expected to lift-off between May 15 and June 3 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the first shuttle launch since the Columbia catastrophe.
A second launch of another shuttle, the Atlantis, is scheduled for sometime between July 12 and 31. Reiter will travel to the space station on the second shuttle trip.
Reiter has already flown in space with Russian cosmonauts on board the Mir. He spent 179 days on the Mir station between September 3, 1995, and February 1996.
