This is a first for a French astronaut: during his second mission in orbit, "Alpha", Thomas Pesquet will be captain of the International Space Station (ISS) for a while, for which he is due to fly on April 22 since. Florida.

At 43, the airline pilot will take control some 400 kilometers above Earth, for about a month, towards the end of his six-month stay.   

"I am incredibly honored!", Rejoiced the astronaut, Tuesday March 16, during an online press conference of the European Space Agency (ESA), which assigned him this function in agreement with the others ISS partner space agencies (United States, Russia, Japan and Canada).

"I am fortunate to be the first Frenchman at the controls of a space vehicle. It is thanks to history, the place of France and Europe in human space flights, it is a recognition for everyone, ”said the astronaut.

The function of commander is performed in turn by the designated members of the ISS crew.

"It's like a boat, there is only one master on board after God", commented Thomas Pesquet.

"Obviously, there are a lot of things that are decided at the ground control center", he explained, but "when things go badly and you have to react quickly, it is the commander who decides, who assigns the tasks a little, for example if we have to deal with an outbreak of fire or a depressurization ".

Another first of the "Alpha" mission: Thomas Pesquet will be the first European to join the ISS aboard a private American spacecraft, Space X's Crew-2 Dragon capsule, which is due to take off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 22, with three other astronauts (the Americans Megan Mc Arthur and Shane Kimbrough, and the Japanese Akihiko Hoshide).  

>> Thomas Pesquet: "A page turns in the exploitation of the International Space Station"

A hundred scientific experiments

"It's approaching, it's crazy! There are so many things happening that before I can even think about it, I will find myself at the foot of the rocket" Falcon 9, which will propel the capsule, said Thomas Pesquet, in full training for this flight.

To journalists asking him if he had stage fright, he replied that it was "like a first parachute jump, where we go a bit like the flower with the gun".

His only regret is not being on the front line aboard the Dragon capsule: "Out of four crew members, there are two who are really in command and two who are not, unfortunately I am one of them. of the two who are not there, it was not me who decided, it was NASA ".

This will not prevent him from bringing his "expertise" as a former pilot of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which took him to the ISS for its first mission, "Proxima", in 2016-2017.

Once docked to the ISS, he and his Crew-2 team will cohabit for a few days with the four Crew-1 astronauts, who will then return after six months in space.

During this handover period, the space station will accommodate no less than 11 people.

"We will be in camping mode a bit," Shane Kimbrough had recently had fun.

At the end of his stay, Thomas Pesquet is expected to be joined by another ESA astronaut, the German Matthias Maurer.

"It very rarely happens that two Europeans work together on the ISS, it would be a beautiful symbol", hopes Thomas Pesquet.

More than a hundred scientific experiments await the astronaut aboard the ISS, a vast laboratory in zero gravity.

"One that I like a lot is an experiment on mini-brains. The space environment is like an accelerated model of aging, wonderfully reversible, so we're going to try to look at its effects on the brain, putting together cells in Petri dishes ".

Four "extra-vehicular" outings in space are also scheduled, the most important of which will consist of the installation of new solar panels, "enormous tubes of 350 kilos".

Outside of working hours, he will take pictures of the Earth seen from space, but "a little less than the last time", because he wants, this time, "to take more time to make memories".

With AFP  

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