page_title: Luca Parmitano
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Luca Parmitano / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, Expedition 36 flight engineer, participates in a session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as work continues on the International Space Station. During the six-hour, seven-minute spacewalk, Parmitano and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy (out of frame), flight engineer, prepared the space station for a new Russian module and performed additional installations on the station's backbone.
context_page_description: Colonel Luca Parmitano is an Italian engineer and astronaut in the European Astronaut Corps for the European Space Agency. He was selected as an ESA astronaut in May 2009.
  Parmitano is also a Colonel and test pilot for the Italian Air Force. Parmitano is the youngest non-Russian astronaut to undertake a long-duration mission, at 36 years and eight months old on the launch day of his mission.
context_section_description: Parmitano is a Colonel in the Italian Air Force and an Astronaut of the European Space Agency. He has logged more than 2000 hours flying time, is qualified on more than 20 types of military aircraft (both fixed-wing and rotary-wing) and has flown over 40 types of aircraft.
  Following completion of undergraduate pilot training in 2001, Parmitano flew the AMX aircraft with the 13th Squadron, 32nd Wing in Amendola, Italy, from 2001 to 2007. During that time, he obtained all the qualifications on that aircraft, including Combat Ready, Four Ship Leader, and Mission Commander/Package Leader.
  Within the 13th Squadron, he served as Chief of Training Section and Commander of the 76th Flight. He was also the 32nd Wing Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO).
  In 2007, he was selected by the Italian Air Force to become a test pilot and qualified as Experimental Test Pilot at EPNER, the French test pilot school in Istres.
caption: Parmitano performing his first EVA
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