He spent his first night in a real bed in six months! Thomas Pesquet returned to Earth a little over 24 hours ago, after 200 days in orbit. The return to Earth always shakes u ...

Space: Thomas Pesquet in Cologne to rebuild his health, before leaving ... further afield

Audio 03:09

French astronaut Thomas Pesquet on Tuesday, November 8, leaving the capsule that brought him and his crew back to earth after six months aboard the International Space Station.

Text by: Simon Rozé Follow

4 min

He spent his first night in a real bed in six months!

Thomas Pesquet returned to Earth a little over 24 hours ago, after 200 days in orbit.

The return to Earth still shakes a bit, the French astronaut returned to the European Astronaut Center in Cologne, Germany for three weeks of recovery.

Advertising

with our special correspondent in Cologne,

The plane that brought him back from Houston had been landed for ten minutes on the tarmac at Cologne military airport.

Thomas Pesquet relishes inside and out of sight the reunion with his loved ones.

But at some point, you have to get out.

First words of an astronaut who has just spent 200 days in space: “

Hello!
Hello ... hello ...

How is he ?

“

Well, it's going very well!

, says Thomas Pesquet.

It's going very well… I had a few hours to recover from
the ditching
, which went well… And then the second time, with a little more practice, we come back in shape even more quickly, so everything is fine.

Everything is going well then.

The features are barely drawn, the smile is there, but we still feel the fatigue.

The return trip

was tough and there is a bit of a lag.

There is a whole rescue team, rescue, which comes to recover us,

relates the astronaut.

Me, I thought they smelled super good of detergent and soap!
Which probably also means that we didn't necessarily feel very, very good when leaving the station ...

We are not yet sure of our actions… And even there, now, I could not run a hundred meters, not right away… The first impressions are the smells;

it's also to see a lot of people - me, I've seen the same people for six months -, so to see a lot of faces, a lot of faces and a lot of voices, it's ... You have to get used to it again, but that is going well

Three weeks of rest and experiences

Thomas Pesquet is therefore back among his family, but his mission is not over for all that.

The space chapter is certainly closed, but the experiments are not over.

He will spend the next three weeks recovering ... and playing the guinea pig.

Some experiments will be done on the cardiovascular system, others on neurosciences, therefore on the brain and the central nervous system, others on tissues and organs ...

developed Laura André Boyet, instructor at the Center European astronauts.

There will be a whole battery of tests that will be done with different instruments, depending on scientific protocols.

This can be syringes, but also ultrasound scanners, MRIs… It depends on the protocol and the experience.

And then we are also going to have additional activities, with a more medical aspect for his follow-up, in order to really see how his body has evolved.

It will be a little more detached from the experiences: for example, we will immediately see how his eyes have evolved

►To (re) read:

Thomas Pesquet's logbook: in the “cockpit” of the International Space Station

A double success

But even if the work is not yet completely finished, we can still draw up a first assessment of Thomas Pesquet's mission.

“

Objectively, what we can say is that he nevertheless carried out two extraordinary missions

, analyzes Lionel Suchet, the deputy director general of CNES, the French space agency.

At the scientific level, because all the experiments were carried out, and at the operational level, because he carried out
six extra-vehicular outings
on his two missions, and they were perfectly successful. This is very important, because an extra-vehicular outing is something complicated in space. Astronauts are highly rated on this. These are things you can't miss. When you decide to go out, you have to succeed. So astronauts who are successful in their exits are always highly regarded and highly rated.

Our astronauts are also expected to communicate with the general public.

He ticked all the boxes at a very high level to go further.

200 days in space was well worth 99 photos: here's a collection of the best of the whole #MissionAlpha.

There are still hundreds left!

😉

200 days in space deserved a 99 #bestof from the mission.

The good news is that there are 100s left to share - more to come!

pic.twitter.com/rptTSsAfeX

- Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) November 8, 2021

And further on, it's the Moon!

A European will be part of the trip organized by the Americans in a few years.

They are 7 in the running, and Thomas Pesquet more than ever in the race.

But before that, as he says himself, he will rest a little.

►To relive Thomas Pesquet's return to Earth, this evening we are broadcasting the last page of the logbook he sent us from space, at 6:10 pm UT on RFI and our social networks!

Space: Thomas Pesquet in Cologne to rebuild his health, before leaving ... further afield

Space: Thomas Pesquet in Cologne to rebuild his health, before leaving ... further afield

Three weeks of rest and experiences

A double success

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest