“Our plan is to send one of the 2022 (astronaut) candidates to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2026. We also want everyone else to be able to fly into space and to the ISS by 2030,” De Winne said.
The five candidate astronauts, consisting of French Sophie Adenot, Spanish Pablo Álvarez Fernández, British Rosemary Coogan, Belgian Raphaël Liégeois and Swiss Marco Sieber, have completed their first month of training.
This new five is part of the current 17-member team of European astronauts, the website of the Deutsche Welle station reminded.
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On this occasion, ESA held a press conference at its European Astronaut Center (EAC) in Cologne, where they talked about what preparation for space flights looks like.
He looks forward to the survival training
E.g. doctor and private pilot Sieber told reporters that the entire basic training was interesting and that he and his colleagues were looking forward to the practical parts. “We all look forward to spacewalk training in the pool or survival training,” he said.
“I’m excited to finally be here. The selection process lasted a year and a half, so I think it was very long for everyone,” said astrophysicist Cooganová, according to Reuters.
Regarding the trip to space, she also pointed out the importance of mental preparation.
Photo: Reuters
New ESA astronaut candidates
ESA was looking for new astronauts among 22,500 applicants. From them, she finally selected five candidates for career astronauts, 11 members of the reserve team and, for the first time ever, also one handicapped person, who in the future should become the first physically disabled person to fly into space.
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About 200 Czechs were interested in becoming an astronaut, but only Svoboda was chosen as a substitute. Reserve team members continue in their current jobs, but are available as replacements in the event that someone from the core team leaves.
A strong partner for NASA
In addition to the training of new astronauts and their first flights, Wednesday’s press conference also focused on other manned ESA projects. David Parker, who is in charge of robotic and manned space exploration at ESA, talked about the lunar mission.
ESA is part of the international Artemis program led by the US space agency NASA, which is returning humanity to the Moon. Europe is producing a service module for the Orion spacecraft that will transport astronauts to the moon. It will provide Orion with air, electricity and propulsion.
“First, we will send a human crew to the Lunar Gateway Station, which is being prepared. It will be the most distant human crew,” Parker said of the upcoming station. It will be placed in orbit around the Moon and is scheduled to start operating from 2025. “Three ESA astronauts will fly to Gateway as part of the Artemis missions, that has already been agreed,” he added.
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ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher stressed the need for Europe to be “more autonomous” when it comes to space exploration.
“I’m a big admirer of NASA, but I’d also like to make Europe much more autonomous and independent in a sense. But not independent because of some isolation of Europe, not at all,” he declared, saying that he simply wants to be a strong partner for cooperation with NASA and other partners again.
Lipavský signed an agreement on cooperation in the exploration of the Moon in the USA
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