Date of Birth: Oct. 5, 1958
Age: 66
André Kuipers is a Dutch physician and ESA astronaut. He became the second Dutch citizen, third Dutch-born and fifth Dutch-speaking astronaut upon launch of Soyuz TMA-4 on 19 April 2004. Kuipers returned to Earth aboard Soyuz TMA-3 11 days later. Kuipers is the first Dutch astronaut to return to space. On 5 August 2009, Dutch minister of economic affairs Maria van der Hoeven, announced Kuipers was selected as an astronaut for International Space Station (ISS) Expeditions 30 and 31. He was launched to space on 21 December 2011 and returned to Earth on 1 July 2012.
The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organisation of 22 member states. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France, ESA has a worldwide staff of about 2,000 employees. ESA's space flight programme includes human spaceflight (mainly through participation in the International Space Station program); the launch and operation of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon; Earth observation, science and telecommunication; designing launch vehicles; and maintaining a major spaceport, the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou, French Guiana.
A batch of 24 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
First of a three launches contract for Amazon's Kuiper low Earth orbit satellite internet constellation, with 24 satellites on board.
A batch of 26 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Eighth cargo delivery mission to the Chinese space station.
Note: SpaceX identifies the mission as "Commercial GTO 1". Dror-1 is a geostationary communication satellite built and developed by Israel Aerospa…