How many people does it take to put an astronaut in space?

For each mission, medics, psychologists and engineers all work behind the scenes to send astronauts safely into orbit and bring them home

Astronauts are the pop stars of science and technology. From a launch site in icy Kazakhstan, they are hurtled into space inside tiny Soyuz capsule, aimed at the remote moving target that is the International Space Station (ISS). There, they will undertake scientific research and become guinea pigs for medical experiments. So it's no surprise that their exciting jobs hog the media spotlight.

But behind every astronaut is a team of dedicated professionals making sure everything runs smoothly. From workers training the astronaut before a mission, to those monitoring their medical health - there are hundreds of professionals involved in getting one person safely into (and back from) space.