Biography

Paolo Angelo Nespoli (Milan, 6 April 1957) is an Italian astronaut and engineer of the European Space Agency (ESA). In 2007, he first traveled into space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery as a mission specialist of STS-120. In December 2010 he again traveled into space aboard the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft as an Expedition 26/27 flight engineer. Nespoli's third spaceflight was onboard Soyuz MS-05 which launched in July 2017 for Expedition 52/53. He is also the European Space Agency's oldest active astronaut.