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. In ESA In May 2009, Parmitano was selected as an ESA astronaut as part of the 2009 class. In 2014, he became a "cavenaut" serving in ESA CAVES training of the European Space Agency alongside Scott Tingle, Alexander Mirsurkin, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Matthias Maurer. In July 2015, Parmitano became an aquanaut when he served as commander of the NEEMO 20 crew. In 2016, Parmitano took part in the first ESA PANGAEA mission, alongside Matthias Maurer and Pedro Duque. In May 2017, Parmitano took part in the CAVES eXpedition One, carried out in the extreme environments of some hot caves in Sicily. Expedition 36/37 In February 2011, he was assigned as a flight engineer to Expedition 36/37 (a long-duration mission to the International Space Station), which launched aboard Soyuz TMA-09M on 28 May 2013 and arrived at the ISS on 29 May. His mission is called Volare, which means "to fly" in Italian and is reminiscent of a very famous song by the Italian singer Domenico Modugno. In May 2013 Parmitano partnered with his 15-year-old mentee Abigail Harrison to have her serve as his Earth liaison during his mission on Expedition 36 and Expedition 37. Harrison shared Parmitano's experience of living in space on the International Space Station with her online community on social media and her blog, where she is known as "Astronaut Abby". On 9 July 2013, he became the first Italian to take part in a spacewalk as he and Chris Cassidy conducted an EVA out of the ISS' quest airlock to install power cables, retrieve material research samples (MISSE-8) and accomplish a number of maintenance tasks. During the EVA, Parmitano also got to ride on the ISS' Mobile Servicing System for the installation of a couple of radiator grapple bars previously flown up on SpaceX' CRS-2 mission. The EVA was part of preparations for the new Russian multipurpose module planned