The Single European Astronaut Crops

J. Feustel-Büechl, H. Oser & D. Isakeit

The International Space Station will be used as a multi-disciplinary research institute in space for fundamental and applied science, as a test-bed for new technologies, a platform for the observation of the Earth and the Universe, and as a stepping stone to further exploration and exploitation of space by mankind. The permanent presence of a crew on board will be one of its most important features. The first crew members will be aboard shortly after the arrival of the Russian Service Module, which means approximately eight months after the first Station element is put into orbit.

The roles of the Station astronauts will cover system operations as well as utilisation activities. In the system operations domain, the astronauts will work, under the authority of the Station Commander, with specific responsibilities not only for the systems provided by the space agency by which they are employed, but also for other systems across the whole Station. In the context of the utilisation activities, they will conduct scientific and applications-oriented experiments on board, with the active involvement of the experimenters concerned on Earth, as far as the specific nature of each experiment allows.