Thomas Reiter will be the first European six-month resident ISS crew member. The 46-year old German will be part of the Expedition 11 team which will travel to the ISS later this year.
Previously all ESA astronauts only spend about a week in the ISS. Reiter is a spaceflight veteran who spend 179 days onboard of the Russian Mir space station in the nineties.
He performed some 40 European scientific experiments and participated in the maintenance of the Mir Space Station. He also carried out two spacewalks.
Trained as a fighter pilot with the German armed forces, he has an MSc in aerospace technology.
