Soyuz exams

ESA Astronaut Luca Parmitano in the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC) in Moscow, Russia on 20 June 2019.

This image shows Luca working on his Soyuz qualification training, with the Soyuz TMA simulator to train for rendevous and docking procedures and to flying skills.

The astronauts work through several crisis scenarios and this session also served as the final exam for their Soyuz qualification training.

Luca is training for his Beyond mission which will see him return to the International Space Station in 2019 as part of Expedition 60/61, alongside NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov.

Luca was the first of ESA’s 2009 astronaut class to fly to the International Space Station. His first mission Volare, meaning 'to fly' in Italian, took place in 2013 and lasted 166 days. Luca conducted two spacewalks and many experiments that are still running today.

Connect with Luca via lucaparmitano.esa.int.