At the end of 2020 ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer was officially assigned to his first mission: a six-month flight to the ISS. ESA Space History Editor Carl Walker spoke to Matthias and patch designer Sarah Poletti for the first Patch Us In of 2021… [caption id="attachment_4277"...
In this week’s instalment of Patch Us In, ESA patch expert Carl Walker talked to the first Spaniard in space, ESA astronaut Pedro Duque, about his flight aboard 1998's STS-95 Space Shuttle Discovery mission. The STS-95 Space Shuttle Discovery mission in 1998 saw the former Mercury astronaut...
In this week’s Patch Us In, ESA patch expert Carl Walker has the very latest news on the patch for mission Alpha – Thomas Pesquet's recently announced flight on board SpaceX's Crew-2 Dragon scheduled for next year… Last week, ESA announced that French astronaut Thomas Pesquet...
In this week’s instalment of Patch Us In, ESA patch expert Carl Walker looks at Soyuz 40 of the Soviet space program Interkosmos, established to assist Russia's allies with spaceflight. In May 1981, Soyuz 40 carried cosmonauts Leonid Popov and Dumitru Prunariu – the first Romanian in...
In this week's instalment of Patch Us In, ESA patch expert Carl Walker looks at a Soviet space mission patch that almost caused a diplomatic incident… This week in 1982 saw the Soyuz T-6 mission launch and dock with the Soviet Salyut 7 space station. One...
The Space Rocks Uplink which featured the reimagined Battlestar Galactica actors Tricia Helfer (Number Six) and Tahmoh Penikett (Helo) was one of our most popular livestream episodes yet. If you missed it, you can watch it in full on our Youtube channel here. But in...
In this week's Patch Us In, ESA's Carl Walker investigates the PromISSe patch as worn by astronaut André Kuipers from the Netherlands… Dutch ESA astronaut André Kuipers flew to the International Space Station (ISS) in December 2011 on Soyuz TMA-03M. He was part of the Expedition...
Our new series continues with Carl Walker looking at the Mission Beyond patch as worn by Italy's Luca Parmitano – ESA's most recent ISS crew member. The ‘Beyond’ mission would see Luca Parmitano of Italy return to the Space Station for a second time and become...
1. Douglas Adams is celebrated annually with towels… Celebrated every year on 25th May, Towel Day is a tribute to the late, great Douglas Adams and his pioneering world of sci-fi. It comes from a line in his enduringly popular 1979 novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to...
We’ve enlisted Carl Walker, ESA Space History Editor, self-professed scutelliphilist (patch geek) and Space Rocks co-conspirator, for a new series about space mission patches. Each month we’ll look at the stories behind the designs and history of these colourful collectibles… Mission patches are reproductions of space...