ESA astronaut André Kuipers and crewmates Oleg Kononeko and Don Pettit docked today with the International Space Station in their Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft. They will work aboard the Station now for five months and return to Earth in May.

It is summer in Antarctica and the new crew for the Concordia research station will soon arrive. And since the place is second only to space for harsh conditions, they have been trained courtesy of ESA.

PR 37 2011 - After their launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 13:16 GMT (14:16 CET) today, ESA astronaut André Kuipers and crewmates Oleg Kononenko and Don Pettit are circling Earth every 90 minutes aboard the Soyuz TMA-3M spacecraft as they make their way to the International Space Station.

The Christmas season has brought the gift of a Soyuz launcher for the PromISSe mission. ESA’s André Kuipers and his crewmates are running their final simulations and preparing to board the rocket on Wednesday to head towards the International Space Station.

After being shut away for 520 days in their simulated spacecraft, the six Mars500 ‘marsonauts’ are now taking a well-earned holiday. In between they underwent extensive medical checks, made a high-profile tour and attended a special tweetup in Rome.

ESA astronaut André Kuipers has spent many months preparing for his next mission – travelling, training, stuck in quarantine and a guinea pig for medical experiments. For the last six months, André has been writing a blog in his native Dutch, but now entries are also available in English.

ESA signed a two-year contract with Astrium on 13 December to provide Industrial Operations Team support to the Agency’s human spaceflight activities.

PR 35 2011 - ESA astronaut André Kuipers is scheduled for launch to the International Space Station on 21 December. Media are invited to cover the event via ESA TV or ESA's web site or attend one of the ESA events in the Netherlands and Germany.

ESA astronaut André Kuipers is now officially ready for liftoff on 21 December: he and his crewmates have passed their final exams and left for the launch site yesterday. Along with André’s plane, his PromISSe mission blog also took off yesterday.

PR 33 2011 - After their 17-month simulated voyage to the Red Planet, ESA's two Mars500 crewmembers, Romain Charles and Diego Urbina, are returning from Russia. The two will talk about their experience with media in Paris, Rome and near Madrid in early December.

ESA astronauts will join Google and YouTube managers on 30 November to present highlights of the 'Space Lab' competition. Space Lab is challenging students around the world to design a science experiment for the International Space Station.

ESA astronaut André Kuipers is inviting thousands of schoolchildren to perform physical activities and to learn about healthy nutrition to compete with teams from around the world to become as fit as astronauts. Mission-X kicks off again in February!

ESA has begun developing a new blood-testing device for astronauts on the International Space Station. A wide range of ailments from diabetes to heart disease should be diagnosable in moments from a single drop of astronaut blood.

PR 31 2011 - Representatives from 28 countries, the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA) met in Lucca, Italy, on 10 November for the Third International Conference on Exploration and the first High-level International Space Exploration Platform.

Discussions will focus on space exploration when ministers and heads of agencies of most of the world’s space-faring countries rendezvous on Thursday in Lucca, Italy.

ESA’s next mission to the International Space Station will be launched on 21 December: André Kuipers will ride into orbit aboard the Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft as a member of the orbital outpost’s Expedition 30.

The record-breaking simulated mission to Mars has ended with smiling faces after 17 months. Mars500’s six brave volunteers stepped out of their ‘spacecraft’ today to be welcomed by the waiting scientists – happy that the venture had worked even better than expected.

At last the 'journey' is at an end for the Mars500 crew of six, who complete their simulated mission to Mars on 4 November. Watch the replay of the hatch opening and the egress of the crew, including the two ESA volunteers Romain Charles from France and Diego Urbina from Italy.

Watch replay

It is the Microgravity Science Glovebox and it comes from Europe. And it has now logged 10 000 hours of research in space. But there is no time for a celebration: it is now busy pointing the way to a new generation of speed-of-light computers.

Understanding osteoporosis, perfecting vaccines and developing new alloys all share one thing: they are just some of the many scientific fields that have advanced significantly through research performed in space.