1. Major Paolo Angelo Nespoli was born on 6 April 1957 and is an Italian astronaut and engineer of the European Space Agency.
19 Facts About Paolo Nespoli
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Paolo Nespoli was the European Space Agency's oldest active astronaut prior to his retirement in 2019.
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Paolo Nespoli is married to Russian Alexandra Ryabova, and they have one daughter and a son.
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Paolo Nespoli enjoys Scuba diving, piloting aircraft, photography, and building electronic equipment and computer software.
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Paolo Nespoli received his bachelor's degree in Aerospace engineering in 1988 and his master's degree in 1989 in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Polytechnic University in New York.
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Paolo Nespoli is a professional engineer, a private pilot, an advanced scuba diver, and a nitrox diver.
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In July 1998, he was selected as an astronaut for Italian Space Agency and in August 1998, Paolo Nespoli was assigned by the European Space Agency to train at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
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In 2013, Paolo Nespoli served as cavenaut into the ESA CAVES training in Sardinia, alongside Jeremy Hansen, Michael Barratt, Jack Fisher, Aleksei Ovchinin and Satoshi Furukawa.
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On 23 October 2007 Paolo Nespoli launched on board STS-120 to the International Space Station; the Space Shuttle mission which delivered the Harmony module to the International Space Station.
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Paolo Nespoli participated as a mission specialist and remained in space for 15 days, 2 hours and 23 minutes.
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On 15 December 2010 Paolo Nespoli flew aboard the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station with the Russian cosmonaut Dmitri Kondratyev and NASA's astronaut Catherine Coleman.
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In early January, Paolo Nespoli filmed the majority of the footage for the 2011 documentary film First Orbit, and as a result is credited as its director of photography.
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Paolo Nespoli took part in the arrival of the second Japanese HII Transfer Vehicle, an uncrewed spacecraft used to resupply the ISS.
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Paolo Nespoli was the prime operator for berthing the HTV-2 to the ISS after the free-flying vehicle was captured by NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman.
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Paolo Nespoli carried out an intensive programme of experiments in the Station, ranging from radiation monitoring to measurements that could improve oil recovery in petroleum reservoirs.
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Paolo Nespoli contributed to the scientific exploitation of Europe's Columbus laboratory.
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Paolo Nespoli used ESA's novel 3D camera to show images of the ISS.
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Paolo Nespoli launched on Soyuz MS-05 on 28 July 2017 15:41 UTC.
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Paolo Nespoli recorded the first content created in space specifically for use on Wikipedia.