![](\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/videos\/2014\/05\/alexander_gerst_mission_to_the_iss\/14518010-4-eng-GB\/Alexander_Gerst_Mission_to_the_ISS_small.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\nESA astronaut Alexander Gerst from Germany is the second of ESA’s new generation of astronauts scheduled to fly into space.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe’ll be making a long-duration stay onboard the International Space Station, launching on 28 May from Baikonur in a Russian Soyuz capsule with two fellow crew members.\n<\/p>\n
\nAlexander was selected as an ESA astronaut in May 2009. He joined ESA in September 2009 and completed Astronaut Basic Training in November 2010.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn September 2011, Alexander was assigned to fly to the International Space Station on a six-month mission. He will serve as a flight engineer for Expeditions 40 and 41. His comprehensive research programme will include a wide variety of European and international science experiments.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis video presents Alexander’s mission: the Blue dot mission, and includes interviews with Alexander Gerst in English and German. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\nESA astronaut Alexander Gerst from Germany is the second of ESA’s new generation of astronauts scheduled to fly into space.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe’ll be making a long-duration stay onboard the International Space Station, launching on 28 May from Baikonur in a Russian Soyuz capsule with two fellow crew members.\n<\/p>\n
\nAlexander was selected as an ESA astronaut in May 2009. He joined ESA in September 2009 and completed Astronaut Basic Training in November 2010.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn September 2011, Alexander was assigned to fly to the International Space Station on a six-month mission. He will serve as a flight engineer for Expeditions 40 and 41. His comprehensive research programme will include a wide variety of European and international science experiments.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis video presents Alexander’s mission: the Blue dot mission, and includes interviews with Alexander Gerst in English and German. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=220099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=220099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=220099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=220099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}