ESA aircraft

ESA aircraft used to bring ESA astronauts to the European Astronaut Centre from Kazakhstan after a spaceflight.

One of the consequences of the devastating hurricane Harvey was the delayed take-off for NASA’s G5 plane out of Houston. In order to cope with this delay and start with postflight science as soon as possible, ESA and NASA worked out an exceptional plan: an ESA plane would retrieve the two NASA astronauts in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and bring them back directly to Cologne, home of ESA’s astronaut centre.