ESA astronaut Frank De Winne came back to Earth today
(Sunday, 10 November 2002) after a successful Soyuz mission
to the International Space Station involving nine days of
ground-breaking scientific research and the delivery of a
brand new TMA-1 Soyuz spacecraft.

Odissea — following the equally successful Marco Polo
mission last April with ESA’s Italian astronaut Roberto
Vittori — is the latest in a series of European manned
missions to the Space Station.

The Odissea mission crew — Frank De Winne and the Russians
Sergei Zaletin, Soyuz Mission Commander, and Yuri Lonchakov,
Soyuz Flight Engineer — flew into orbit on the first ever
flight of the new Soyuz model TMA and returned in the old
TM-34 Soyuz that had been attached to the Space Station as
an emergency return vehicle for the last six months. Safely
descending to Earth in their Soyuz TM-34 capsule, the crew
ended a 11-day mission with a flawless night landing near
the town of Arkalyk on the plains of Kazakhstan at 06:04
local time (00:04 GMT).

ESA astronaut Frank de Winne, a former Belgian Air Force
fighter pilot and the first non-Russian ever to fly on the
maiden flight of a Russian vehicle, described his first
voyage into space as “the most intense, challenging and
unbelievably fulfilling 11 days of my professional life.”

During his nine-day stay on the Space Station, De Winne
worked on a substantial programme of 23 scientific
experiments. These included four physical science
experiments for which De Winne made use of the newly
installed Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) research
facility — an important piece of hardware designed and
developed by Europe located in the US laboratory. On his
second day on the Space Station, Saturday, 2 November
2002, he also had the pleasure of taking part in
celebrations to mark the second anniversary of the
beginning of permanent habitation of the Station by
resident crews.

“Over the past two years, the Space Station has gradually
become an advanced scientific laboratory for world-class
research for the benefit of life on Earth. Europe’s
contributions in the form of research facilities like
the MSG and, in particular, ESA’s Columbus laboratory —
which will be added to the orbiting complex in less than
two years from now, in October 2004 — and regular taxi
flights with European astronauts demonstrate the
importance of European expertise in this international
project,” said De Winne.