Liftoff Videos

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Alexander Gerst

Alexander Gerst in a training spacesuit at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.

Photo: James Blair / Public domain

Alexander Gerst is a German geophysicist and astronaut of the European Space Agency, born on 3 May 1976 and selected in 2009. He flew to the International Space Station twice: first on Soyuz TMA-13M, as part of Expedition 40 and Expedition 41 from May to November 2014, and again from 6 June 2018 as part of Expedition 56 and Expedition 57, when he became station commander. He returned to Earth on 20 December 2018. Wikipedia notes that, after his second mission, he held the record for the most time in space of any active ESA astronaut, 362 days, until Luca Parmitano passed him in 2020.

Born
3 May 1976
Country
Germany
Flights
2: Soyuz TMA-13M (2014), Soyuz MS-09 (2018)
Time in space
362 days 1 hours
Stations visited
International Space Station, as part of Expedition 40, Expedition 41, Expedition 56, Expedition 57

Data as of 2 November 2026. Source: Wikidata (CC0). All people who have flown in space.

Videos on this topic

The videos, in date order

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André Kuipers’ Extended ISS Stay and Alexander Gerst’s Training

Spark

Duration 54:23

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Dates are when each video was first published on YouTube.