ESA Samantha Cristoforetti: Testing Sokol spacesuit in a vacuum chamber

ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti tests her custom-made Sokol spacesuit in a vacuum chamber. 

Samantha will wear this suit during the liftoff and landing for her six-month International Space Station mission set to start in November this year.

Credits: Yuri P. Kargapolov

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst testing his Russian Sokol spacesuit

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst testing his Russian Sokol spacesuit for the last time before his launch to the International Space Station in May 2014. 

Alexander has been training for his mission since 2011 after he was selected as an ESA astronaut in 2009. 

Based at ESA's ESOC, European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, his space adventure has taken him to Canada, USA, Japan and Russia for training with robots, spacecraft, hypergravity and survival techniques. 

Image courtesy GCTC.

The clock is ticking: in 100 days ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst will be launched to the International Space Station with NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and cosmonaut commander Maxim Suraev.

Strapped on top of 274 tonnes of rocket propellants, they will be boosted to 28 000 km/h to arrive at the orbital outpost in less than seven hours.

The launch will mark the start of Alexander's Blue Dot mission as part of Space Station Expedition 40/41, staying for six months on the ISS, the world's only permanently staffed orbital laboratory.