page_title: Alexander Gerst
section_title: Expedition 56/57
hierarchical_section_title: Alexander Gerst / In ESA / Expedition 56/57
caption_attribution_description: English: ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst is returning to the International Space Station next year and today he revealed his mission name and logo: Horizons. Alexander is the first of ESA’s class of 2009 astronauts who will be sent into space for a second time, launching on Soyuz MS-09 together with NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps and Russian spacecraft commander Sergei Prokopyev in May 2018. His first mission, Blue Dot, in 2014, lasted from May to November 2014. The logo was designed to be timeless and shows a face gazing into the horizon above a blue band that symbolises the atmosphere, but also the Blue Dot mission. The new mission goes beyond Blue Dot and extends into infinity symbolised by the white arc. To the right of the mission name is a stylised International Space Station.
context_page_description: Alexander Gerst is a German European Space Agency astronaut and geophysicist, who was selected in 2009 to take part in space training. He was part of the International Space Station Expedition 40 and 41 from May to November 2014. Gerst returned to space on June 6, 2018, as part of Expedition 56/57. He was the Commander of the International Space Station. He returned to Earth on December 20, 2018. Since the end of his second mission, he holds the record for most time in space of any active ESA astronaut, succeeding Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, and German ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter, who formally held the record for the longest time in space for any active or retired ESA astronaut.
context_section_description: Gerst launched his second tour to the ISS on Soyuz MS-09 on 6 June 2018, as part of Expedition 56/57. He is the commander of the ISS for Expedition 57. He will bring a robot assistant called "CIMON". He was the second European Space Agency astronaut to command the station, after Frank de Winne commanded Expedition 21, and also the youngest astronaut to command the station, at age 42 as of October 2018. In May 2017, his mission name and logo were announced, called "Horizons". 
  On 20 July 2018, while on the ISS, Gerst took part in a live concert by the German electronic music group Kraftwerk in the German city of Stuttgart. He addressed the audience and played a synthesizer during the performance of the song "Spacelab".
  On 20 December 2018 he and his crewmates Serena Aunon-Chancellor and Sergey Prokopyev returned to Earth and landed in Kazakhstan after 197 days in space, combined with the 165 days in space on his last mission, Gerst has 362 days in space, more than any other ESA astronaut in history.
caption: Gerst's mission logo.
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