The Euromir missions

The 179-day flight of ESA Astronaut Thomas Reiter onboard the Russian Space Station Mir drew to a successful conclusion on 29 February 1996 with the safe landing of the Soyuz TM-22 capsule near Arkalyk in Kazakhstan. This mission, known as Euromir 95, was part of ESA's precursor flight programme for the International Space Station, and followed the equally successful Euromir 94 mission by ESA Astronaut Ulf Merbold (3 October-4 November 1994). This article discusses the objectives of the two flights and presents an overview of the experiment programme, a preliminary assessment of its results and achievements, and reviews some of the lessons learnt for future Space Station operations.