Paolo Nespoli in his Sokol pressure suit

ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli greeting the press and friends in his Sokol pressure suit in the MIK preparation building in Baikonur, some 4 hours before lift-off of Soyuz TMA-20 to the International Space Station (ISS), on 15 December 2010.

ESA's astronaut Paolo Nespoli was launched in a Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 15 December at 20:09 CET with Dmitri Kondratyev and Catherine Coleman for a challenging 6-month mission on the International Space Station (ISS) as members of Expeditions 26/27.

Paolo’s MagISStra mission is Europe’s third long-duration mission on the ISS. Between December 2010 and June 2011 he will be part of the ISS crew as a flight engineer.