Page 77 - Italy In Space

ITALIAN ASTRONAUTS IN SPACE [4]

27 April 2002. Docking of Soyuz TM-34 with the International Space Station. Italian Air Force officer

and U.S. Navy test pilot Roberto Vittori, became the first Italian to fly with Soyuz and the first non-

Russian “cosmonaut” to act as Soyuz Flight Engineer. Cover flown on the ISS, cancelled oboard on the

day of docking and undocking with non-postal souvenir “Korolëv postmark” with date setting

mechanism, and bearing the octagonal on-board blue ISS seal. COVER FLOWN IN SPACE

May 16, 2011. Launch of the Shuttle mission Endevour STS-134. Vittori flew in space for the third
time and was the last non-US astronaut to fly on the Shuttle. He also was the first Italian astronaut to
visit the ISS three times and to fly on both Soyuz and Shuttle. The mission delivered to the ISS the
Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), designed to measure antimatter in cosmic rays and search for
evidence of dark matter.

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