Italian Space Agency (ISA)

European Space Agency (ESA)

This astronaut visited the International Space Station.

ISS Visitor

This astronaut crossed the Kármán Line (100 km), the internationally accepted boundary of space.

Crossed Kármán Line

This astronaut has spent over a month in space.

Space Resident

Luca Parmitano, born in Paternò, Italy, on 27 September 1976, is an Italian Air Force colonel and ESA astronaut, married with two daughters, with interests ranging from endurance sports to music and scuba diving. Educated in political science, military aviation, and experimental flight test engineering, he became a highly experienced pilot and test pilot, logging over 2000 flight hours on more than 40 aircraft types and earning major national honours for aeronautical valour. Selected as an ESA astronaut in 2009, Parmitano flew two long-duration missions to the International Space Station (2013 and 2019–2020), spending a total of 367 days in space, conducting numerous scientific experiments, and completing six spacewalks totaling over 33 hours. During his second mission, Beyond, he made history as the first Italian and third European commander of the ISS, led complex repairs of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, and supported hundreds of European and international experiments while also engaging the public through unique outreach events from orbit. Courtesy of ESA.

Soyuz MS-13

Soyuz MS-13 took three members of the Expedition 60 crew to the International Space Station. Christina Koch, who launched on Soyuz MS-12, landed on this mission after a year in space.

Soyuz is a human-carrying capsule built and operated by Russia, capable of transporting up to three people to the Space Station at a time. It has been upgraded numerous times since its first use in the 1960s for the Soviet lunar program and was the only crewed vehicle for the Station from 2011 to 2020.

Soyuz

Soyuz TMA-09M

Soyuz TMA-09M ferried three members of the Expedition 36 crew to the International Space Station.

Luca Parmitano

Italy

Expedition 36 EVA 2

Expedition 61 ISS Quest EVA 6

Expedition 61 ISS Quest EVA 5

Expedition 61 ISS Quest EVA 9

Expedition 61 ISS Quest EVA 4

Expedition 36 EVA 3

Roscosmos

This astronaut is in the top 5% for total spacewalking time.

Elite Spacewalker

This astronaut is in the top 5% for total time in space.

Elite Spaceflyer

This astronaut is in the top 5% for number of space walks.

Frequent Walker

STS-112 (Atlantis)

Atlantis' crew delivered the S1 truss to the International Space Station. A piece of foam broke off the External Tank during launch and damaged a part of one of the Shuttle's Solid Rocket Boosters, foreshadowing the Columbia accident two missions later. NASA managers decided it was safe to keep flying.

The first reusable launch and landing spacecraft, the Space Shuttle began a new chapter of human space exploration. It launched like a rocket but landed on a runway like a plane. Shuttle crews deployed dozens of commercial satellites and two interplanetary probes to Venus and Jupiter. The Shuttle served as a mini space station and hosted hundreds of biomedical, psychological, physiological, materials science, and physics experiments that have directly benefited life on Earth. The five flight-worthy Shuttles -- Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour -- flew 135 missions over 30 years. The Shuttles helped construct the Russian Mir space station and brought nearly 80% of the International Space Station to orbit. Shuttles also deployed and serviced the Hubble Space Telescope.

Space Shuttle

Soyuz TMA-10

Soyuz TMA-10 ferried part of the Expedition 15 crew to and from the International Space Station. Space Tourist Simonyi joined for a short duration mission, returning to Earth on Soyuz TMA-9. During reentry, the Service Module failed to fully separate from the Descent Module, triggering a harsh, steep reentry and landing. Investigators misidentified the cause of the failure, leading it to reoccur on Soyuz TMA-11.

Soyuz TMA-19

Soyuz TMA-19 ferried three members of the Expedition 24 crew to the International Space Station.

Soyuz MS-04

Soyuz MS-04 took two members of the Expedition 51 crew to the International Space Station. Peggy Whitson, who launched on Soyuz MS-03, returned to Earth on this mission.

Fyodor Yurchikhin

Russia

NASA

STS-124 (Discovery)

Discovery's crew installed the International Space Station's largest module, the Japanese Experiment Module. The flight rotated a single ISS crewmember.

Karen L. Nyberg

United States of America

Soyuz TMA-18

Soyuz TMA-18 ferried three members of the Expedition 23 crew to the International Space Station.

Soyuz TMA-12M

Soyuz TMA-12M ferried three members of the Expedition 39 crew to the International Space Station.

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