European astronaut corps
The European Astronaut Corps is the group of active astronauts of the European Space Agency (ESA). The headquarters of the corps, which currently consists of 9 members, is the European Astronaut Center in Cologne . Often the astronauts are deployed in different places in the world, e.g. B. at the European Space Research and Technology Center (ESTEC) in Noordwijk , at the Johnson Space Center of NASA in Houston , or at the Juri Gagarin cosmonaut training center in the Russian star city .
history
The ESA began its manned spaceflight program with Spacelab , the first for the 1978 ESA astronauts have been selected. The first three astronauts selected were the German Ulf Merbold , the Dutch Wubbo Ockels and the Swiss Claude Nicollier .
In 1983, Ulf Merbold was the first to fly into space on the STS-9 space shuttle mission . Wubbo Ockels flew two years later. Claude Nicollier had to wait 14 years for his first STS-46 mission , but has now overtaken the others with four space flights.
The second ESA selection was made in 1992 on the basis of two large ESA projects: Hermes (now discontinued) and Columbus . There were more than 22,000 interested parties and 5,500 serious candidates for this astronaut selection. Six candidates were ultimately selected, including an astronaut already selected by the French space agency CNES : Jean-François Clervoy from France . The other five were Thomas Reiter from Germany , Maurizio Cheli from Italy (retired in 1996), Pedro Duque from Spain , Christer Fuglesang from Sweden and the first woman, Marianne Merchez from Belgium , who soon retired and did not fly into space.
On March 25, 1998, the ESA Council of Ministers decided to form a joint European astronaut corps. The aim was to improve the organization within the program for the International Space Station (ISS). Germany and France, which were the only European countries to have their own astronaut corps, saw the merger as a necessary step to optimize the coordination of the astronauts. The decision of the ESA Council of Ministers included the creation of a corps of 16 astronauts (four each from Germany, France and Italy and four for the other member states). The integration process should go hand in hand with the dissolution of the national astronaut corps by the end of June 2000. The agreement does not preclude a member state from being able to use astronauts from the European Astronaut Corps for a national space project.
Other astronauts joined the European Astronaut Corps between 1998 and 2000. On April 10, 2008, ESA announced that it was planning to enlarge the astronaut group, which had now shrunk to eight members. From May 19 to June 18, 2008, people from all 17 member states of the ESA could apply. By the application deadline, 8,413 serious applications had been received from all ESA member countries. Of these, 22.1% came from France, 21.6% from Germany, 11.0% from Italy and 4.2% from Switzerland. Of all applications, only 1430 were from women. Subsequently, 918 people were selected for the psychological test of the first level, of which 192 received an invitation to the second test level. The new group of astronauts was presented to the public on May 20, 2009 at ESA headquarters in Paris. The Italian Samantha Cristoforetti , the German Alexander Gerst , the Dane Andreas Mogensen , the Italian Luca Parmitano , the British Timothy Peake and the French Thomas Pesquet began basic training as new astronauts , in order to do missions to the ISS and possibly also to the moon from 2013 onwards.
Members
The European Astronaut Corps currently consists of 9 space travelers: three from Italy, one from France, two from Germany and one each from Spain, Denmark and Great Britain.
Active members
| astronaut | nationality | Entry date | Missions | Time in space | image |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Samantha Cristoforetti |
|
May 20, 2009 |
|
199d 16h 43min |
|
| Pedro Duque |
|
May 15, 1992 |
|
18d 18h 46min |
|
| Alexander Gerst |
|
May 20, 2009 |
|
362d 1h 51min |
|
| Matthias Maurer |
|
July 1, 2015 |
|
|
|
| Andreas Mogensen |
|
May 20, 2009 |
|
9d 20h 14m |
|
| Luca Parmitano |
|
May 20, 2009 |
|
366d 23h 3min |
|
| Timothy Peake |
|
May 20, 2009 |
|
185d 22h 11min |
|
| Thomas Pesquet |
|
May 20, 2009 |
|
196d 17h 49min |
|
| Roberto Vittori |
|
August 1, 1998 |
|
35d 12h 26min |
|
former members
| astronaut | nationality | Entry date | Missions | Leaving date | Time in space | image |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maurizio Cheli |
|
May 15, 1992 |
|
June 30, 1996 | 15d 17h 41min |
|
| Jean-François Clervoy |
|
May 15, 1992 | 28d 3h 5min |
|
||
| Frank De Winne |
|
January 2000 |
|
August 1, 2012 | 198d 17h 34min |
|
| Reinhold Ewald |
|
February 1999 |
|
2007 | 19d 16h 34min |
|
| Léopold Eyharts |
|
August 1, 1998 |
|
68d 20h 30min |
|
|
| Christer Fuglesang |
|
May 15, 1992 | 26d 17h 38min |
|
||
| Umberto Guidoni |
|
August 1, 1998 | July 2004 | 27d 15h 12min |
|
|
| Claudie Haigneré |
|
November 1, 1999 |
|
June 18, 2002 | 25d 14h 22min |
|
| Jean-Pierre Haigneré |
|
June 1, 1998 |
|
November 1999 | 209d 12h 25min |
|
| André Kuipers |
|
July 1999 |
|
203d 15h 51min |
|
|
| Ulf Merbold |
|
1978 |
|
August 30, 1998 | 49d 21h 36min |
|
| Marianne Merchez |
|
May 15, 1992 |
|
1995 | ||
| Claude Nicollier |
|
July 1978 | March 2007 | 42d 12h 5min |
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|
|
| Wubbo Ockels |
|
1978 |
|
1986 | 7d 0h 44min |
|
| Philippe Perrin |
|
December 2002 |
|
May 2004 | 13d 20h 35m |
|
| Thomas Reiter |
|
May 15, 1992 |
|
October 2007 | 350d 4h 55min |
|
| Hans Schlegel |
|
August 1, 1998 | 22d 18h 2min |
|
||
| Gerhard Thiele |
|
August 1, 1998 |
|
October 2005 | 11d 5h 39min |
|
| Michel Tognini |
|
November 1, 1999 |
|
May 2003 | 18d 17h 46min |
|
| Paolo Nespoli |
|
August 1, 1998 |
|
November 2018 | 313d 02h 36min |
|
Individual evidence
See also
Web links
- Official ESA site (English)
- ESA Astronaut Selection Brochure (English, PDF file, 7 MB, 42 pages)