Space Q&A: grill the cosmonauts with RT
Space team Q&A coming soon!
At the end of May Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA-15 will carry three people to the International Space Station. They are: Russian Roman Romanenko, Belgian Frank De Winne and Canadian Robert Thirsk.
RT has collected your questions to the crew members - and now they have answered them!
We thank everyone who joined our Q&A session with the space explorers.
The session was organized by RT together with the Russian space agency Roscosmos. Stay tuned for more exciting space features!
Bio: Roman Yurievich Romanenko
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Russian Space Agency cosmonaut
Born on August 9, 1971, in the city of Shchelkovo near Moscow. Roman Romanenko is married to Yulia Romanenko and they have a son and a daughter. His hobbies include spearfishing, hiking, yachting and music.
Graduated from Suvorov military school in St. Petersburg in 1988. Received training in tactical fighter aviation warfare in Chernigov Air Force School.
Before joining the space flight team, Romanenko served as second commander in the training regiment of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre. He flew L-39 and Tu-134 aircraft, logging about 800 hours of flight time. He is certified as a Class-3 Air Force pilot.
Romanenko was selected as test-cosmonaut candidate in 1997. He received basic training as test-cosmonaut in Star City near Moscow and received certification in 1999.
He was selected as backup flight engineer for the International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 9 and Expedition 11, and as backup mission commander for Expedition 15.
In June 2008, he was assigned as ISS prime crew flight engineer and Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft commander. This will be Roman’s first space mission.
Bio: Frank De Winne
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European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut
Born in Ghent, Belgium, on April 25, 1961. He is married to Lena Clarke and has three children. Enjoys football, small PC applications and gastronomy.
Frank De Winne graduated from the Royal School of Cadets, Lier, in 1979. He received a Masters degree in Telecommunications and Civil Engineering from the Royal Military Academy, Brussels, in 1984. In 1992, he graduated from the Empire Test Pilots School (ETPS) in Boscombe Down, UK, where he was awarded the McKenna Trophy.
From August 1998 to January 2000, Frank De Winne was the Squadron Commander of the 349th Fighter Squadron at Kleine Brogel Airbase, Belgium.
During operation Allied Force, Frank De Winne was the detachment commander of the Deployable Air Task Force, a combined Belgian/Dutch detachment that flew about 2000 sorties during this NATO campaign. He has logged 17 combat sorties.
Frank De Winne has logged more than 2300 hours flight time on several types of high-performance aircraft, including Mirage, F16, Jaguar and Tornado.
In January 2000, Frank De Winne joined the European Astronaut Corps of the European Space Agency. In August 2001, De Winne took up training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City near Moscow.
From October 30 to November 10, 2002, De Winne participated in the Odissea mission, a support flight for the ISS. He served as flight engineer on the updated Soyuz TMA spacecraft during ascent, and on Soyuz TM during re-entry.
During his nine days on the ISS, De Winne carried out a programme of 23 experiments in the fields of life and physical sciences and education, including experiments in an important new research facility designed and developed in Europe, the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG).
In January 2008, Frank De Winne was assigned as a prime crewmember of Expedition 20 to the ISS.
Bio: Robert ‘Bob’ Brent Thirsk
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Canadian Space Agency astronaut
Born August 17, 1953, New Westminster, British Columbia.
Received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Calgary in 1976, a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1978, a Doctorate of Medicine from McGill University in 1982, and a Master of Business Administration from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1998.
Dr. Thirsk was in the family medicine residency program at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Montréal when he was selected in December 1983 for the Canadian Astronaut Program.
He served as crew commander for two space mission simulations: the seven-day CAPSULS mission in 1994, at Defence Research and Development Canada in Toronto, and the 11-day NEEMO 7 undersea mission in 2004 at the National Undersea Research Center in Key Largo, Florida.
In June and July of 1996, Dr. Thirsk flew as a payload specialist aboard space shuttle mission STS-78, the Life and Microgravity Spacelab (LMS) mission. During this 17-day flight aboard Columbia, he and his six crewmates performed 43 international experiments devoted to the study of life and materials sciences.
In 1998, Dr. Thirsk was assigned by the Canadian Space Agency to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to pursue mission specialist training. Within the NASA Astronaut Office, he serves as a Capcom (capsule communicator) for the International Space Station (ISS) program. Capcoms participate in actual and simulated space missions as a communication link between the ground team at Mission Control and the astronauts in orbit.
In 2004, Dr. Thirsk trained at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre and became certified as a Flight Engineer for the Soyuz spacecraft. He served as backup Flight Engineer to European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Roberto Vittori for the Soyuz 10S taxi mission to the ISS in April 2005.
