Germany
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Spain
Estonia
Finland
France
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
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Luxembourg
Norway
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Poland
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Marco Polo
17th manned mission to ISS.
Soyuz TM-34 is a Russian passenger transportation craft that was launched by a Soyuz-U rocket from Baikonur at 06:26 UT on 25 April 2002.
It carried two Russian cosmonauts and a South African spaceflight participant to the International Space Station (ISS). All three returned on Soyuz TM-33 after an 8-day mission.
Soyuz TM-34 was the last of the Soyuz-TM spacecraft, due to its replacement by the Soyuz-TMA.
MISSION STATISTICS
Mission name: Soyuz TM-34
Call sign: Uran
Number of crew members: 3
Launch:
25 April 2002, 06:26:35 UTC, Baikonur LC1
Landing:
10 November 2002, 00:04:20 UTC, 80 km NE of Arkalyk
Duration: 198 days, 17 hours, 37 minutes, 45 seconds
Number of orbits: ~3 235
CREW
Launched
- Yuri Gidzenko (3)
- Roberto Vittori (1) - ESA Italy
- Mark Shuttleworth (1) Spaceflight participant - South Africa
Landed
- Sergei Zalyotin (2)
- Frank De Winne (1) - ESA Belgium
- Yuri Lonchakov (2)
(1) number of spaceflights each crew member has completed, including this mission
MISSION HIGHLIGHTS
Roberto Vittori became the first ESA astronaut of Italian nationality to reach the International Space Station on board a Russian spacecraft. Together with Mission Commander Yuri Gidzenko (Russian) and flight participant Mark Shuttleworth (South African), Vittori took off on a Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan for a 10-day mission on 25 April 2002, and landed safely in Kazakhstan on 5 May 2002.
The three men worked on board the Space Station for eight days alongside the resident crew - Expedition Four Commander Yuri Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz.
In recognition of the 13th century Italian explorer and the extensive participation by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), Vittori's 'taxi' flight was called the 'Marco Polo' mission.
The flight, the fourth exchange of a Soyuz spacecraft - which currently serves as the main rescue vehicle for the Space Station crew in case of an on board emergency - was undertaken under a framework agreement between ESA and the Russian space agency, Rosaviakosmos.
Vittori oversaw four European experiments during his eight- day stay on the International Space Station. Also Mark Shuttleworth performed some biology experiments, as he carried a live rat and sheep stem cells.
