Pedro Duque during Soyuz training at Star City

Spanish ESA astronaut Pedro Duque training at Star City near Moscow in preparation for his Soyuz mission to the International Space Station currently scheduled for Autumn 2003.

Duque will carry out a full scientific programme, spending some 40 hours of his eight day stint on the ISS on experimental activity. Most of the experiments are sponsored by the Spanish government although there are also a number of reflights of experiments from the Belgian Odissea mission to the ISS in October 2002.

Duque will also participate in a number of educational and promotional activities with the aim of bringing the European human space programme and research performed in space to a wider public, and young people in particular.