ODISSEA



Frank de Winne

Born in Ghent, Belgium, 25 April 1961. In January 2000, Frank De Winne joined the European Astronaut Corps of the European Space Agency, whose homebase is the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. From 30 October to 10 November 2002, De Winne participated in the Odissea mission, a support flight to the ISS. He served as flight engineer on the updated Soyuz TMA-1 spacecraft during ascent, and on Soyuz TM-34 during reentry.


Artwork

The Earth: Central point, with the ISS and the Soyuz capsule in orbit. Ultimate beneficiary of this Belgian mission. A mission primarily focusing on Exploration, Science and Technology.

The columm: Europe as a pillar of the bridge between the USA and Russia, in the domain of manned spaceflights. Frank de Winne is the first European who will officially use the science facillities in the American part as well as the Russian part of the ISS.

The colours: The national colours of Belgium, the colours of the Russian Federation, The European colours.

(June 06, 2002) Frank de Winne at ESA-ESTEC in the Netherlands. Moments before the mission name and logo for Frank De Winne's 'taxi' flight to the ISS was unveiled.


Why Odissea

Odissea
The odyssey that led Odysseus past seas and oceans...
Along and troublesome voyage, filled with obstacles but successfully brought to an end...

For manned spaceflights...a first step towards long-duration journeys to Mars.
For science...the beginning of a new era of scientific research on board of ISS.
For international co-operation...the ISS as a crowning achievement.
For Frank de Winne...finally in space, 12 years after being selected.

The ISS, centre of gravity for the manned space flights.


Collecting Odissea

The Odissea patch made by Randy Hunt.


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