Cologne, Germany –
Over the past year, five physically fit and academically superior men and women have been centrifuged, submerged for hours, temporarily deprived of oxygen, taught to camp in the snow, and educated in physiology, anatomy, astronomy, meteorology, robotics, and Russian. .
On Monday, five Europeans and one Australian graduated from basic training with a new title: astronaut.
At a ceremony in Cologne, Germany, ESA added five new arrivals eligible for missions to the International Space Station to its astronaut corps, bringing the total to 11.
ESA has negotiated with NASA for three spots on future Artemis moon missions, although those spots will likely go to more senior astronauts, according to ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher. The agency also supplies the service module for the Orion crew capsule. ESA depends on NASA and others to get its astronauts into space.
He is only the fourth generation of astronauts since 1978 for the 22-nation agency, chosen from 22,500 applicants. Twelve others were selected as reservists, but were not sent to basic training. Not surprisingly, all five have well-studied resumes with advanced scientific and medical degrees, military training, experience piloting airplanes, helicopters, gliders and balloons, and “leisure” activities such as rowing, diving, hiking, skydiving, cycling, sailing and kayaking. .
The group formed “a very good team,” with no personal rivalries, Aschbacher said. “I told them that one of you would fly first and the other would fly last, and they accepted it, of course, but from the heart, not just lip service. …the team spirit is very pronounced.”
Sophie Adenot, a French air force helicopter test pilot, said the group was “a fantastic crew and a fantastic team”. The moment that impacted her the most was stepping out of the airlock to simulate an underwater spacewalk when the instructor said, “Welcome to space.” “.
“And for me it was amazing, I got goosebumps… In a few years I will be in space, not in the water with safety divers.”
When she was a little girl and dreamed of traveling to space, “I couldn’t count the number of people who told me this dream will never come true. You have unrealistic dreams and it will never happen. …Listen to yourself and don’t listen to people who don’t believe in you.”
In addition to Adenot, the ESA class consists of:
- Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Spanish aeronautical engineer who has worked on the Rosalind Franklin Mars rover destined for a joint mission with Russia that was suspended after the invasion of Ukraine;
- Rosemary Coogan, British astronomer who has investigated radiation emissions from black holes;
- Raphael Liegeois, a Belgian biomedical engineer and neuroscientist who has researched degenerative diseases of the nervous system and also flies hot air balloons and gliders;
- Marco Alain Sieber, a Swiss emergency doctor who achieved the rank of sergeant as a paratrooper during his service in the Swiss army.
The group was joined by Katherine Bennell-Pegg from Australia, who conducted the training under a cooperation agreement between Australia and ESA. She remains an employee of the Australian Space Agency. It’s up to the Australian agency to find a way for her to travel to space.
Their one-year basic training included preparation for the hostile environment found in space. They were exposed to several times the force of gravity in a centrifuge and spent hours underwater using scuba gear to float around mock-ups of space station modules to simulate working in zero gravity.
They learned to recognize the symptoms of hypoxia or lack of oxygen by experiencing them themselves in a low-pressure chamber. Survival training included dealing with a possible splashdown in the ocean and staying warm in winter while waiting to be recovered in the event of a landing going off course. Added to this was academic work on scientific topics and learning about the modules and equipment of the space station.
Intensive Russian language remains part of the program, even though ESA has suspended work with Russia, except on the space station, where one of the working languages is Russian.