Luca on ISS

Astronaut training Related articles Services Calendar 29 May 2013 - A Soyuz spacecraft launched from Kazakhstan last night safely docked with the International Space Station this morning, delivering ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and his crewmates to the orbital outpost where they will live and work for five months. Luca Parmitano is an ESA astronaut flying on board the Space Station for the Italian Space Agency (ASI) under a bilateral agreement between ASI and NASA. With Luca were Russian Soyuz commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg. All three will be part of the Station's Expedition 36/37 crew as flight engineers. Luca's own mission is named 'Volare' - 'to fly' in Italian - to symbolise the search for new frontiers and opportunities for discovery. The Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft lifted off from Baikonur spaceport at 20:31:24 GMT on 28 May (22:31:24 CEST 28 May; 02:31:24 local time 29 May) and reached orbit nine minutes later. Following a series of manoeuvres during four orbits of our planet, Soyuz docked with the Station's Rassvet module five hours and 46 minutes after liftoff.