Some of the crew items contained in the Soyuz

The rolls on the right are the sleeping bags that will be used for the 48 hours of flight before docking International to the Space Station. On the left are the containers for the Penguin suit, a specially made suit that mainly maintains the spine compressed in order to limit the change in height that astronaut experience in microgravity. Baikonur Cosmodrome, 4 December 2010.

Paolo Nespoli, ESA's Italian astronaut, will travel to the International Space Station (ISS) on 15 December for a long-duration mission called MagISStra and serve as flight engineer for Expeditions 26 and 27. This will be the third six-month mission by a European astronaut on the Station.