20 years of Europeans on the Space Station Details Related The International Space Station has been orbiting Earth for over two decades, and the first European astronaut to arrive was Umberto Guidoni on 21 April 2001. This month ESA celebrates 20 years of ESA astronauts on the International Space Station. The next to be launched, ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, is scheduled to ride to the Station on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft on 22 April 2021 under NASA’s commercial crew programme. Umberto flew to the Space Station on the US Space Shuttle STS-100 mission that was launched on 19 April 2001. This picture shows him in the Russian Zvezda Service Module after opening the hatch on 23 April between the Space Shuttle