All Astronauts
ELITERetiredESA
ELITERetiredESAESA·🇮🇹 Italy·Born 1957
Paolo Nespoli
Italian ESA astronaut and veteran of three spaceflights totaling 313 days in space.
351d
Days in Space
3
Missions
0
EVAs
—
EVA Time
What they aspire to
He hoped to share the perspective of Earth from orbit and encourage curiosity about space.
Biography
Italian ESA astronaut and veteran of three spaceflights totaling 313 days in space. Conducted over 200 experiments.
Before NASAItalian Army special-forces operator with the 9° Reggimento paracadutisti Col Moschin who later became an aerospace engineer at NASA and ESA.
Notable Missions
STS-120 (Esperia)Soyuz TMA-20 (MagISStra)Soyuz MS-05 (VITA)
Beyond the Mission
Hobbies & Interests
scuba divingflyingreadingphotography
Causes They Champion
Education outreach via ESA
Languages
ItalianEnglishRussian
Awards & Honors
- NASA Space Flight Medal
- Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
Fun fact
On his MagISStra mission he was photographed inside a Soyuz capsule docked to the ISS — producing the first image of a crewed spacecraft attached to the station taken from another spacecraft.
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