After six months in space, Thomas Pesquet will be back on Earth on Monday

Wilfried Devillers, edited by Laura Laplaud 3:28 p.m., November 06, 2021

These are the last hours in space for Thomas Pesquet.

The Frenchman and his companions will embark on Sunday aboard the Crew Dragon capsule, called Endurance.

A procedure already familiar to Thomas Pesquet since it is his second stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

"It looked a lot like my landing on the Soyuz except that a priori, the landing will be a little softer, on the water", specifies the astronaut.

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408 km of travel

A vertiginous descent: 408 km of journey.

As it approaches the surface, past the stratosphere, several parachutes will be deployed to slow down the capsule.

Objective: to stabilize it at 20 km / h before it hits the ground.

"It can move a little, we are not necessarily in very good physical shape in terms of balance," he explains.

"We already have a little seasickness normally, when we come back to land, so when we come back to sea, it could be even worse. But we'll see."

Intense rehabilitation

And the return to earth will only begin.

"We have experiments to do, scientific data, blood tests, things like that which will be done at the landing site," explains Thomas Pesquet.

"Very quickly, I will go back to the European Astronaut Center, it's a French Air Force plane that will bring me back to Cologne, Germany."

From this center, the French will follow an intense rehabilitation program to readjust to life on Earth after 197 days spent in zero gravity.

But the 43-year-old astronaut dreams of only one thing: "A first week of vacation for many months. I even feel like it's been years," he breathes.

It will land on Monday off Florida.